Twister
by ultharkitty
Summary: G1, Dysfunction AU. Two copters; one Protectobot, one Combaticon; one big storm, one hell of a crash, and the aftermath. Contains non-con, plug'n'play slash, unintentional bondage, inuendo, crack, combat violence. Comes before Recall.
1. Twister

**Setting:** G1, just after the end of season 2  
**Characters/pairings:** Blades/Vortex, implied Starscream/Skywarp/Thundercracker, and a supporting cast  
**Content Advice:**slash, storm!kink, plug 'n' play, non-con, bondage/S&M, towering egos, violence, porn without much of a plot

* * *

.

* * *

"There's been a severe weather warning," Jazz said. "Tornado country." He lay a datapad carefully on Optimus's desk. "Think we should alert the Protectobots?"

Optimus nodded. "The humans will almost certainly need help. Tell them to roll out."

* * *

.

* * *

Vortex chugged his energon, set the cube down carefully on the table, and made his way altogether too calmly towards the rec room door.

Swindle's optics flared. "Where are you going?" he demanded.

"Supercellular tornado!" Vortex snarled with a vicious gleeful grin.

Swindle watched him leave, head cocked to one side. "Huh?"

Dead End leant against the wall, polishing his knuckles. "He's stalking the elite trine," he said softly.

"And?"

"They're off to go do that thing seekers do in big electrical storms," Dead End explained.

Swindle shook his head slowly.

"He's your team mate," Dead End said slowly, using the tone he reserved for morons and combiner teams that weren't his own. "Use your gestalt bond."

"What, with Vortex?" Swindle sounded shocked. "Are you insane?"

* * *

.

* * *

Vortex lost them almost immediately, three gleaming blurs speeding into the cold grey sky. He took off quickly from the Nemesis's tower, but his alt mode was no match for a jet, let alone Starscream's trine. It didn't matter, though. He saw where they were headed; if he kept on in that direction, he'd find them soon enough.

* * *

.

* * *

Blades hovered in an irregular zigzag, riding the gale. Potential buzzed through his every cable; static charge crawled across his armour. High winds and pounding rain, the zip of and zing of lightning; just his kind of weather. The other Protectobots drove cautiously, clinging to the tarmac, but he had the sky, and the sky had him. It made his team mates nervous, their concern rippling through the gestalt bond, but he reassured them with an echo of his elation.

The team split up. No Decepticon activity, so Defensor was unlikely to be useful. Fire and flood and flying livestock, collapsing houses and broken bridges, a hundred separate disasters occurring wherever the twisters formed. The team could do far more about that as individuals than they ever could combined.

Blades flew low, helping where he was needed, passing by where he was not. He stayed in his alt mode, following the major roads, spotting opportunities and seizing them. It was dramatic and exhilarating and heroic, and Blades loved every astrosecond.

* * *

.

* * *

Autobots. Slag. Vortex climbed, concealed within the clouds. No sign of the seekers, but this was certainly the place. Everything about it was right. The air pressure, the wind speed, the low-flying debris. Everything except the Autobots, but they seemed to be preoccupied playing with squishies.

Vortex couldn't see the point in that. Squishies were small, tricky to handle, and they broke easily. Give him a good old-fashioned Cybertronian mech any day. So much more durable.

A strong wind shoved him. He sighed as the quick air screamed against his sensors. He almost wished Blast Off was here, but it was so hard to match their speeds, the shuttle and the helicopter; it would never have been worth it.

Thinking of speed, the seekers were here somewhere… Vortex whirled, slicing through the wind, and whooped with joy to be thrust sideways several dozen feet in defiance of his frantically whirring blades. Yeah, that's what he came for. That and the seekers, hidden in the clouds.

Another gust battered him. He lost altitude with a violent lurch, then gained it on an updraft. He stopped his rotors for one glorious moment of free-fall, all the fuel in his tanks thrust giddily upwards, then cut them in again, forcing himself into the heart of the storm.

And what a storm! His visual sensors offlined sporadically, and all his delicate human-made instruments ceased to work. The air pushed him this way and that, probing chill fingers into his cockpit and the minute gaps of his transformation seams. Once, he thought he caught a glimpse of red and white, tumbling through the cloud. Starscream _finally_, but then it was gone and Vortex was spinning, guided by the wind, twisting and turning, rain-soaked and bombarded by a thousand shards of human debris.

Another flash of red, the fleeting echo of a scream. Vortex tried to follow, but the twister gripped him, slamming him around and around in a violent spiral. Each turn brought a new shock, each impact blazing a path to his laser core. His sensors hummed and his circuits rang. He was a mosaic of tiny wounds, each one singing hot and vibrant with accumulating charge.

Something big slammed into him, sending him spinning to the ground. He transformed on impact, shrieking high and loud as his rotors were wrenched from his back. Molten agony speared through him, a glut of pleasure-pain assailing him with wave after wave of roaring ecstasy.

He bucked and sprawled on the filthy wet earth. Convulsing with the echoes of his overload, Vortex cried out with each fresh aftershock until finally the world turned to black.

* * *

.

* * *

Blades awoke to a universe of pain. He was sitting upright in root mode, legs sprawled in front of him, one arm dangling uselessly by his side. There wasn't an inch of him that didn't sting or ache or twinge, shooting nasty little jolts through his circuits and making him wish he was still offline.

He ran a thorough systems check. Everything was working properly. Everything except his optics. He rebooted them twice, but it made no difference, he continued to see nothing but grey and distant dark shapes. It took him a while to recognise that the grey was from the storm, pelting rain and hail ricocheting from his armour. His audio sensors kicked in soon after and he moaned, processor spinning. So much for his diagnostics.

He activated his communicator. It made a disconcerting shrill whine, but he tried it anyway. "Blades to Hot Spot." No response. "Blades to Hot Spot, do you read me?" He waited, still nothing. Even worse, he couldn't focus long enough to reach through the gestalt bond to the other Protectobots. "Gah!" He tried to stand, but the mere effort of leaning forward blasted his back struts and made it feel as though Devastator was tearing out his rotor assembly with his bare fists.

Blades jumped, startled, as a keening moan began immediately behind him, a whine as shrill as his broken communicator, but one that congealed after a while into words.

"Not yet not yet not yet too soon!"

"Oh slag," Blades swore; he knew that voice. Reflexively, he tried to run, but succeeded only in heaving himself about a foot along the soggy ground.

"ARGHHHHH! I said too soon! What the pit is wrong with you?"

Blades slapped himself on the helm, hoping it might jog his processor into some semblance of working order. Too soon? What the frag? And why hadn't Vortex killed him already?

He needed to turn around, to face the enemy. He needed a plan, a weapon, his photon pistol! But it wasn't on his arm. It was lying in a puddle about fifty feet away, beside something that looked very much like a broken rifle in Decepticon colours.

"Mmmm, that's better," Vortex sighed. Blades felt a weight settle against his back and realised that the Combaticon was leaning on him.

"Hey, get off!" he yelled, but Vortex squirmed, rubbing uncomfortably against the raw base of his rotor array. "Stop that! Get away from me!"

"Hmmm? Can't," Vortex said. He sounded as though he was smiling.

A cold dread settled around Blades' core. "What do you mean, can't?"

"We're stuck." Vortex laughed softly. There was something strange about him, Blades thought; he was subdued, mellow. Probably got hit a bit too hard when they crashed. "We're all twisted together. You can't move; I can't move. We're stuck. Now stop wriggling around and let me enjoy this."

Blades shifted his weight, relieving the pressure on his sore rotors.

Vortex hissed. "Slagger, I said stop moving!"

"Why?" Blades asked, more out of a need to be antagonistic than any desire to actually know.

"'Cause I can't feel much when you do that. Just wait," Vortex said. He sighed, still and calm. "That's better. Mmmmm, so nice…"

"What! I'm not doing anything, don't say things like that!" Blades considered knocking himself offline, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it with a Decepticon stuck to his back.

"That reminds me," Vortex drawled. "Vortex to the Nemesis. Hey, someone pick up, I've caught an Autobot!"

"Soundwave responding." It was faint and a little tinny, but that voice was unmistakable. Blades shuddered, and to his horror Vortex's engine purred.

"Hey, Soundwave, tell Screamer to come get me, yeah?"

"Starscream unavailable," Soundwave replied. "State your location."

"Uh," Vortex paused. "The storm?" he hazarded. "Where Screamer went. Over the big place, continent thing. The one with mountains all up and down it. Got a desert in the middle and loads of squishies."

"How precise," Soundwave commented. "Which Autobot?"

"Hey!" Vortex elbowed Blades in the back, causing his optics to flicker. "You're a Protectowhatsit, yeah? What's your name?"

"Frag you," Blades snapped.

"In a minute," Vortex shot back. Then, to Soundwave. "Defensor's right arm, whatever he's called."

"Activate your distress beacon. Soundwave out."

Vortex giggled long and hard, until the frustration became too much and Blades wrenched at their twisted rotors.

"Mmmmmm, the feeling's coming back," Vortex commented. Blades growled, willing the photon pistol closer so that he could aim behind himself and shoot the slagger. He spotted a tree branch near his foot and tried to hook it.

"You ever get fragged so well you can't feel anything afterwards?" Vortex asked.

Blades froze. "Huh?"

"Y'know, when all the little circuits decide they've had enough and close themselves off. No more sensory input, and everything's just… numb for a bit."

"Um, no," Blades said.

Vortex shifted. "That's depressing."

"What! Why?" Blades shook his head. "On second thoughts, just shut up, all right?"

"You like your mechs quiet, huh?" Vortex said. "I don't." The muzzy contentment was beginning to drain from his voice. "I'm bored, let's frag."

"What? No!" Blades caught the branch on the very end of his foot and flipped it into the air, trying his best not to let the shock echo through his armour. It landed on his helm with a clang that was lost in the wail of the wind.

"Awww, c'mon. I've fragged plenty of Autobots. We've got a while before the big guns show up, might as well have some fun."

Fun, yeah. From the 'con who seemed to have overloaded because he crashed. Blades suppressed a shudder.

"_Tasty_. When I get you back to base, I'll make you wish you'd said yes…"

"I thoroughly doubt that," Blades said. His open comm. line still whined, every so often hissing with static. He hoped Teletraan One was picking him up, even if he couldn't hear anything in return.

"Hey!" Vortex yelled. Blades gasped and looked around. The other 'cons, it must be. But something prodded him on the hip, and he looked down to find that Vortex had somehow twisted one arm behind himself, and was grasping for something to take hold of. "Hehehehehe, nice aft."

Trying to calm his engine, Blades picked up the branch and reached out. It was about ten feet too short.

Vortex snickered nastily. "I wonder where you access ports are…"

"Get offa me!" Blades yelled, whacking Vortex hard on the fingers. But Vortex only laughed, and his armour seemed to heat up just a little.

"Make me."

Blades paused; there was more than a hint of lust in that tone, and he didn't like it one bit.

"I'll give you a hint," Vortex purred. "Pull my fingers back, stretch the joints…" But before Blades could think of a response, his communicator buzzed into working order.

* * *

.

* * *

"Ark to Blades, come in Blades." Red Alert adjusted the frequency on Teletraan One's transmitter. "Blades, come in. Can you hear me?"

"Red?" The response was faint, drowning in static.

"Blades, thank goodness, are you all right?"

"Um..." There was a pause. "... could say that. Systems are mostly fine. Can't talk much, stuck to a 'con."

A second, fainter voice emerged through the crackling, and Red felt the energon freeze in his pipes. "Hahahahahaha! Too right you are!" Vortex; oh no.

Red muted the transmitter and hailed Optimus. "Sir," he said. "We have a problem."

"Red?" Blades called, the slightest edge of panic in his voice. "Blades to Red Alert, you there?"

"What's the matter?" Vortex said. "They abandon you?"

Red flicked the transmitter switch. "I'm here, Blades. What's your position?"

"Missionary!" Vortex's scratchy voice dissolved into manic giggling.

On the other side of the command room, Spike choked on his drink and Bee snickered.

"Gah! Do you even know what that means?" Blades cried. "That's not even... Shut up, just shut up!"

"Blades, we're coming for you." Red Alert spoke calmly, while his fingers twisted dials and flicked switches. "State your location."

"Hahahahaha, they don't know!" Vortex screeched. "I'm takin' you home, Autobot!"

"Slag you!" Blades yelled. Red gave Bumblebee a look, hoping that he'd take Spike away, but the little yellow bot didn't seem to get the hint.

Blades snarled, and Red thought he heard the scream of grinding metal. A piercing shriek tore through the static, covering the swoosh of the command centre doors.

"Red Alert, report," Optimus said, as the shriek became a wail and then a cry of "Oh Primus, oh Primus! Yesyesyesyesyes!"

"Bumblebee," Optimus said through the noise. "Isn't it about time you were on patrol? Spike can go with you."

"I'm not on patrol for-"

"Now, Bumblebee," Optimus said. Bee slumped, but complied. They were gone by the time the wailing stopped. In its wake, Blades' voice seemed even smaller.

"Vortex is offline. I hope he's in stasis lock. I can talk, but I don't know how long for."

Optimus paused before responding. "I'm not going to ask what you just did," he said.

"I'd appreciate that, sir."

"Do you know where you are?" Red Alert said.

"I'm in some kind of industrial complex, abandoned," Blades replied. "Near Lawton, Oklahoma. South by south east of the airport, not sure how far. Vortex has no idea where we are. He's been in contact with Soundwave; that was maybe five minutes ago. He has a distress beacon. Weather's still bad here, limited visibility."

"Understood," Red replied. He found a grid reference and transmitted the approximate coordinates to everyone within range. "Help's on its way."

"Thanks, Red."

"What happened?" Optimus asked.

"I got caught in a twister, a really big one, decided to ride it out. Turns out I wasn't alone." Blades huffed, his voice ringing with frustration. "We crashed, got our rotors caught up. They're all knotted, I think his are hanging on by a cable or two, but I can't break free. Can't transform, can hardly move."

"Understood. Any other damage?"

"Only psychological," Blades said. "The slagger won't shut up."

"Wha' wassat?" Vortex mumbled, his voice almost lost under the hiss of white noise and the grind of the wind.

"Optimus," Blades said, and the connection died.

* * *

.

* * *

"Optimus?" The Autobot wouldn't give up; tenacious little slagger. "Red Alert, do you copy?"

"They can't hear you," Vortex said in a sing-song voice. The rain was easing, but the wind still howled. A strong gust spun their rotors, bringing the damaged ends into view. Blades let out a strangled groan. Vortex grinned. "Mmmm, that was _good_... What's that thing you Autobots do?" Blades didn't respond. "Reciprocation, that's it. I should _reciprocate_. What's this?" He pulled at a paddle with sore fingers, tugging hard on the flat metal. A delicious jolt of pain shot along the rotor and down his back struts. "Hehehehe, that's mine!"

"You can't tell which one's yours?" Blades sighed. "Oh for Sigma's sake."

"How about... this one?" Reaching up, he tugged on the one next to it.

"ARGHH, stop that, you rusted pile of junk!"

Vortex's grin widened. "What a filthy mouth you've got," he said. "What about this?" He felt Blades tense behind him, warm metal against his back. Supporting the fractured rotor in his left hand, he dragged the very tips of his fingers gently along the paddle's blunt edge.

"Stop that," Blades snapped. "I mean it."

"Hmmm, is it just me, or do I detect a slight increase in temperature?"

"I said stop that!"

"But I want to do something for you," Vortex pouted. "After all, you did something for me. And it's _boring _out here." He retracted his battle mask and brought the paddle to his mouth. "Tell me how this feels." He nibbled on the edge, teasing the sensor nodes.

"Arg, stop it!" The other 'copter was tense, probably had his head back, optics dimmed or offline altogether. Keeping the paddle in his mouth, Vortex reached back and dragged the very tips of his fingers along the seam between the Autobot's right hip and his abdomen. Blades spasmed, tugging at their rotors, and clasped frantically at Vortex's fingers. Only his left arm appeared to be working, interesting… Sucking hard on the very end of the paddle, Vortex explored with his hand, following the slender lines of the transformation seams as far up as he could reach.

"What's this?" he said, as Blades scraped at his hand. He felt the edge of a panel, dug a claw underneath, and heard Blades cry out as the covering opened. "An access port!"

"ARGHHH, you psychotic blasted fragger, stop that!" Blades cried, finally getting a grip on Vortex's wrist. Vortex felt his joints grind, but the tiny sensor relays were still isolated after his last overload, and all the sensation they sent him was a numb and disappointing pressure. Still, at least the Autobot was getting into it.

Vortex let the paddle go and selected the next of Blades' rotors, cradling the damaged end and scraping his glossa lightly over the exposed wiring. "Say pretty please."

"I'm not going to plead with you," Blades said, as his fans began to whir. He snarled, tightening his grip, and Vortex moaned as a dozen tiny cogs in his wrist sheared out of place.

"Ah! That's more like it!" Vortex sighed. He channelled the vibrations from his vocaliser through the twisted rotor. "Can First Aid feel this?"

"What?" Blades gasped, and his temperature climbed a little more.

"Do you share it with your team" - Vortex blew a gentle stream of air over the nodes - "The sensations. First Aid always looks so… fragile."

"You keep away from him!" Blades gasped. Oh yes, the Autobot was charged, judging by the heat of his armour, and the irregular, hitching growl of his engine. Good.

"My team don't share that stuff with me," Vortex said. He worked his denta along the unbroken edge of Blades' rotor. When the 'copter didn't answer - didn't even move - Vortex sucked gently on the metal, holding it in place with his glossa while he reached down to his own interface panel. "It's their loss." Blades had frozen, only the wheeze of air through his vents and the occasional stifled gasp giving any indication that he was conscious. That would never do; Vortex liked his partners loud.

Carefully, Vortex wound the loose, frayed wires from Blades' broken sensor array around the business end of his interface cable. It sparked, fizzing in the dying rain, and Vortex sent a small pulse of energy across the link, just enough to see if the circuit would hold.

"What… are you doing?" Blades demanded.

Vortex sent a rather larger pulse, and the recoil buzzed right through him. He whooped, the rotor blade springing from his mouth.

Blades moaned. "Oh no, you've got to be kidding me… Gah!"

"Oh yesssss," Vortex whispered, as pulse after pulse of pure, blazing energy sang along the connection. Each oscillation crashed into the Autobot and lashed straight back at him, fractured and stinging, like brake fluid poured into an open wound. The sensor array wasn't meant for this, but _slag_it was working!

The Autobot convulsed, screaming, dragging Vortex with him into the fastest overload he'd had since Screamer broke him out of prison. It wasn't as good as earlier, but Sigma, it was still _good_.

"I hate you," Blades said, his vocalisations hoarse. "I absolutely fraggin' hate you."

"You're welcome," Vortex giggled, riding the aftershocks as the wires in Blades' broken rotor finally crumbled into fragments and his interface cable dropped into his lap. Contented, Vortex replaced his battle mask and glanced around. No sign of the other 'cons yet, useless fraggers. "Come on," he sighed. "You can't tell me that didn't get you off."

Blades muttered something Vortex didn't catch, and strained away from him. "Hmm?" Vortex queried, then wailed with exhausted glee as the Protectobot heaved, and the final connections between Vortex and his rotor assembly snapped. The Autobot howled, spinning away across the muddy ground. Vortex slid to the dirt, a hot gush of energon spilling down his back.

"Slag!" Blades swore, and Vortex grinned up into the barrel of his photon pistol. It was smoking. Blades pulled the trigger again and again, but to no effect.

"Nice try," Vortex said, and kicked, sweeping Blades' feet out from under him. Blades crashed on his aft, a scowl of complete and utter loathing twisting his faceplates. Vortex snickered, not bothering to sit, let alone stand.

"Want to know something?" he said, propping his head on his unbroken hand.

"No," Blades snarled. The low grumble of ground-based engines could just be detected through the falling wind. Blades stood, glancing warily at the sky, and backed away. His dead arm hung limp and useless, swinging around in a way that made Vortex want to yank it off.

"Well, I'm going to tell you anyway." Vortex said. "I like to bring two things to my enemies, the ones I don't have the time to enjoy properly. Want to know what they are?"

Blades glared, mouth curled in a snarl. "Pain and more pain?" he spat.

Vortex smiled wide behind his battle mask. "Shame and regret," he sneered. "It's my gift. Enjoy."

"Crazy glitch," Blades said, but his snarl had vanished, replaced by an altogether less pleasant triumphant grin. Vortex turned to face the oncoming groundpounders, a queasy unease bubbling in his near-empty tanks. Red and blue, white and yellow. No purple, no green. Oh slag, that wasn't his gestalt. Vortex cursed his team mates' prissy isolation from their gestalt bond and growled in frustration as Blades chose just that moment to kick him hard in the back. His optics shorted, flashing a prismatic mosaic coloured by the dizziness of energy loss.

When they came back online, Vortex found himself staring into the massive and perfectly functioning barrels of both of Ironhide's largest guns.

"Oh frag."


	2. Interface

**Sequel to Twister - Chapter 1 of 14**

**Content advice:** references to rape. Non-erotic interfacing.

**Disclaimer:** Just playing in the sandbox, characters not mine.

**Characters and/or pairings:** Protectobots with Vortex, Ironhide and Hoist in the background, and some random human staffage.

**Summary:** After attacking Blades when they got stuck together in a tornado, Vortex has been taken captive by the Autobots. Blades is reunited with his team, but they don't know exactly what happened.

**Notes:** In 'The Revenge of Bruticus', the Protectobots emerge from a garage in some city somewhere. This led to me thinking that they had a separate HQ to the rest of the Autobots – hence, they've got one here. This fic is finished, so I'll be updating regularly. This was beta'd by the awesome Naboru.

* * *

.

* * *

It took all of five minutes for someone to come out with the worst questions imaginable.

"What happened?" First Aid asked. "Are you all right?"

Blades stood with his back to a wooden outbuilding. His broken arm dangled, and he still had his finger on the trigger of his useless gun. He shook his head. "Just don't, OK?"

In the background, Hot Spot and Ironhide were chaining Vortex to a truck. Blades recognised Hoist's distinctive green and orange, covered over now with pink-streaked grey. An uncomfortable sensation rippled through his tanks; he still had the fragger's rotor assembly stuck to his back.

First Aid reached out to touch his arm, an everyday gesture intended to reassure. Blades flinched, and felt the ricochet of hurt and confusion coming back at him down the gestalt bond.

"Hey," he said, to break the mood. "Help get this off me, yeah?" He turned and knelt, trying not to shudder as First Aid ran his hands lightly over the tangled metal. His optical input fragmented, one of the blessings of the bond, as he saw what First Aid saw. It was hideous.

"I don't have the tools for that here," First Aid said. "We're going to have to wait until we get back to the Ark. I'm sorry."

Blades stood, his vision returning to normal. "No," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I said no. They're taking _him_ to the Ark, I'm not going there. You've got the tools back at our base." He watched as Hoist drove off, Ironhide close behind. "Let's go home."

* * *

.

* * *

Blades lay face down on the repair berth. His team mates stood around him, chatting, their energy fields tinged with concern and more than a touch of amusement. It wasn't their fault, they didn't know what had happened. They were just pleased that he'd bagged a 'con, and got out of it in one piece.

Only First Aid needed to be with him; why couldn't the others just go away?

Their concern was stifling. Blades tried to hide his indignation, but it seeped along the bond regardless and manifested as a jittery restlessness. It even got to First Aid, whose fingers trembled as he isolated the affected part of Blades' sensor net. It was unnerving, First Aid usually had such steady hands, even during battle.

But this wasn't battle, and Blades had no idea how to tell the others that what he actually needed right now was for them to be somewhere else.

"This is going to take a while," First Aid announced. That sounded like a hint, perhaps he understood? Or perhaps he was just fed up with the others laughing and fidgeting while he was trying to work.

Whichever, they either missed the hint or ignored it.

Blades pressed his face into the plastic covering. At least he couldn't feel that pit-spawned fragger's rotor assembly clinging to his back any more. The weight was still there, and a numb pressure where First Aid worked to separate the twisted metal; but there was no proper sensation, and he was glad.

"Someone pass me that wrench," First Aid said. "If you're going to stand around like a bunch of lampposts, you might as well make yourselves useful."

"You're turning into Ratchet," Hot Spot commented. Streetwise laughed.

"Yeah, well," First Aid said. "Groove, come press on this." Blades offlined his optics, he didn't want to know what they were doing. The sooner this was over with, the better.

There was a loud clank, and the clatter of small objects hitting the floor.

"One down," First Aid commented. Blades gripped the edge of the berth with his good hand, and tried not to shake.

* * *

.

* * *

Eventually, he was free.

"Wanna go for a spin?" Groove suggested. Blades shook his head, and slid off the berth before First Aid could reconnect his rotor array to his sensor net. He didn't need that right now.

"He's not going anywhere until I see to that arm," First Aid stated.

"You can do it tomorrow," Blades replied. He tried to inject a bit of levity into his voice, but it just came out hollow. "It's not so bad."

First Aid looked him in the eye. "Guys," he said. "Can you give us five?"

Hot Spot nodded. "C'mon, you two, you heard the medic."

"Grouchy medic," Streetwise teased. "He'll start throwing things next."

"That's just a myth," First Aid sighed. "Ratchet doesn't chuck stuff at his patients, and neither do I. Now get your afts out of my medbay and go do something fun."

As they left, Blades sat back down. "Can't refuse the medbot," he said.

First Aid perched on the berth beside him. "What's wrong?" he asked. "You're wound up tighter than Red Alert in a fire drill. What happened out there?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Blades said. It was humiliating, disgusting. How could he impose that on his team mates? It was better that they never found out.

"All right." First Aid still radiated concern, clear as day in the subtle pulse of his energy field. But there was something else there too, a growing fear and frustration that he was obviously trying to hide. He stood, and began to examine Blades' injured arm. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked.

Erase my memory? Blades thought. Stop touching me? "I just want to forget about it."

First Aid caressed his shoulder, feeling out the damage. Blades cringed without meaning to, and the medic's energy field wavered, uncertain.

After a long pause, broken only by the shuffle of fingers against fractured metal, First Aid spoke. "Link with me?"

Blades tensed, wincing at the crackle of revulsion which raced, unwanted, through his own EM field. First Aid stepped back.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to push you... I just, I thought it might help you relax."

"Maybe later," Blades suggested, although he couldn't imagine a time when it would be possible for him to relax, let alone a time when he might want to interface again. Vortex was poison, his gift of shame and regret snarling in Blades' processor, cutting through logic pathways and redirecting subroutines. Blades wanted to look up, to meet his team mate's concern with reassurance, to take back the defensiveness, the hurtful reactions. Instead, he just stared at the floor.

"OK," First Aid said, as though refusing to link was somehow normal and Blades' rejection hadn't cut him. "If you could lay on your side..."

* * *

.

* * *

"You need to tell me," Hot Spot stated. He stood on the edge of the roof, a bright orange sunset blazing across his armour. Blades leant on the railing, looking down at the busy streets. Every so often light glinted from a lens as someone paused to take their photo.

"There was a tornado," Blades said. "We crashed, it got messy. There's no more to tell."

"I think there is," Hot Spot said. "You don't need to push us away. We can help."

Blades didn't respond. Usually he'd play up for the tourists, a few circuits above the skyscrapers, a long, slow transformation sequence. But his rotors were a dead weight, the sensors still disconnected. As it was, the thought of flying just left him numb.

Blades logged the positions of his other team mates. Streetwise and Groove were out on patrol, probably attracting more cameras. First Aid was still in medbay; he hadn't come out since fixing Blades' arm. Blades reached along the gestalt bond, but stopped short of forging a link. What if First Aid accessed his memories? What if they poisoned him too? He drew back into himself, frustrated and ashamed.

"I need to go make my report," he said, pushing away from the railing.

Hot Spot blocked his path. "Prowl can wait," he said. "This is more important."

"I'm fine," Blades said.

"No," Hot Spot sighed. "You're not. And don't give me any of that 'it's none of your business' rust. We're a team, best damned team there is. If we can't help one of our own, then we can't help anyone."

"Don't need help," Blades muttered.

"I don't think the others caught this," Hot Spot said. "But, when you were out there, just before we found you, I got an echo of something... unpleasant."

Unpleasant, what a word for it. Blades bowed his head; all of a sudden his armour felt too heavy to lift, his hydraulics too weak to move the weight of his limbs.

"We tried to get through to you," Hot Spot said. "But nothing worked. We couldn't find you." He took a step closer. "We don't want to lose you again."

"I'm not going anywhere," Blades said, but he knew what Hot Spot meant. It had already begun, an incremental peeling away from the rest of the team, and he hated it. "I said no to First Aid," Blades whispered, hoping that the breeze would steal the words away before they reached Hot Spot's audios. "I don't want this to hurt you, any of you."

"He'll understand," Hot Spot said. "And it won't, I promise."

Blades wondered if Hot Spot was lying to himself, but he couldn't ask, not standing here face to face like ordinary mechs, isolated from the bond by a bubble of fear.

Without quite meaning to, Blades let Hot Spot lead him back indoors.

* * *

.

* * *

There could have been something erotic about it, but there wasn't, and Blades was glad.

Past the revulsion and the white hot anger, the indignity and the shame, was relief. All he had to do was sit back, his awful weight supported by the soft human-style furnishings, while Hot Spot unspooled his interface cable and initiated the download.

There were no energy pulses, no teasing sparks or tactile contact. Nothing to make his fuel pump race and his fists clench. There were no surprises, just the gentle flow of data as Hot Spot accessed his memory banks.

Blades wasn't relaxed, far from it, but the interface was clinical, matter-of-fact. Hot Spot offered only calm silence; he extracted the requisite files quickly and cleanly, and expected nothing in return. It was all right to just let this happen.

It was over in minutes, his cable rolled neatly away, his panel closed. His head lolled, supported by the cushions.

"Please," he said, the words crackling as his systems powered down. "Tell First Aid I'm sorry."


	3. Making his own entertainment

**Content advice:** verbal harassment, implied slash.

* * *

.

* * *

Prowl leant over Teletraan One, watching the brig security feed while he waited for Hot Spot's report to load.

"What's he doing?" Bumblebee asked.

Prowl counted to ten before turning around. It was a technique he'd borrowed from Sparkplug, who seemed to use it a lot with Spike nowadays. "How are you in here?"

"Huh?" Bee crept a little closer to the monitor. "Seriously, what's he doing?"

The screen showed Vortex upside down in his cell, spinning around on his helm. Prowl sighed, and muted the display.

"Hey, I was watching that!"

"Not any more, you're not," Prowl responded. "Go do something useful."

"Like what?"

"Anything, as long as it's somewhere else."

It took a full ten minutes before Prowl began to regret the final part of that sentence. Having brought the security display back up, it wasn't long before he noticed Bumblebee casually wander into the brig.

* * *

.

* * *

Vortex was still spinning on his helm. His optics were offline and his vocaliser was emitting a high-pitched whirring sound.

"What are you doing?" Bee asked. He leaned against the wall beside the outer door. "Hey, psycho-copter, I know you can hear me."

The whirring stopped, but Vortex continued to spin. "First Aid?" he asked.

"Nope," Bee said. "Why'd you want him?"

"Doesn't everyone?" Vortex responded. He came to a graceful halt and flipped over into a predatory crouch. Bee got the impression that he was grinning behind his battle mask. His darkened visor was just plain creepy.

"Um, no, not particularly," Bee said. "What were you doing, just then?"

Vortex's optics came online with a startling flash. "Making my own entertainment," he replied.

"Uh, Ok."

"You're very small," Vortex said. "Did you bring me some energon?"

Bee suppressed a shudder. All of a sudden, his folded arms felt far less nonchalant and a bit more like a shield. "No."

"Shame. How's Defensor?"

Bee opened his mouth, then shut it again. Vortex on the monitor was one thing, but Vortex on the other side of the room with only two sets of energon bars between them was entirely another.

A blur of movement, and Vortex no longer crouched, but sat against the side of his cell, knees up and chin resting on his hands. A few of his fingers appeared to have been crushed, but it didn't seem to bother him. "You've come to… interrogate me?"

Bee shook his head. For some reason, his vocaliser had developed a hitch.

"That's disappointing." Vortex sighed. "No one seems to want to interrogate me. I might as well not exist."

"That's… messed up."

"Hey, I'm all on my own here," Vortex said, staring dolefully at the floor.

Bee coughed static. "That's, ah…"

"The thing about prison? Yeah. But usually there's more laser scalpels and less processor-numbing tedium." Vortex sighed again. "This is _boring_."

"I think it's meant to be," Bee said. He jolted sideways several feet as the door behind him opened. A large, white hand pressed gently on his shoulder.

Bee looked up, and further up. He managed a weak smile. "Hi, Skyfire."

* * *

.

* * *

"I didn't know you were on brig duty," the large 'bot said. Hmm, so that was Skyfire, interesting. Vortex focused the light from his optics and used it to trail a transient pattern on the floor of his cell. The outline of a wing, the curve of a cockpit. Pretty.

"I, uh…" The little yellow 'bot stammered a bit, then seemed to concede that the game was up. "I was just going."

"You do that," Skyfire said.

"Come again with some energon!" Vortex called. "And bring a friend!"

The minibot glanced back, once, then vanished around the corner. Strange little thing. Too curious for his own good; could be entertaining, might even be useful at a stretch.

Skyfire settled down in an oversized chair, and reached for a datapad.

"They trust you in here?" Vortex asked.

Skyfire glanced up, briefly, but didn't respond.

Vortex stretched out on the floor, chin resting on his undamaged hand, knees bent and feet in the air. "They're forgiving sorts I take it," he said. "Autobots. I suppose they'd have to be after… you know… So, do you get your pick of the fliers?" That earned him a slightly longer look. "I'll take that as a yes. I'm thirsty, got any high grade?"

Kicking out one long white leg, Skyfire spun his chair so that Vortex was no longer in his field of vision.

"Nice wings," Vortex said. "I could polish them for you if you like? Do Autobots have that thing where you can do what you want with prisoners, 'cause I'm kinda bored."

"I could disable your vocal apparatus," Skyfire said. His voice was pleasant, cultured; far better than silence.

"What else could you do with me?" Vortex asked, but Skyfire simply shook his head.

Vortex rolled onto his back. Skyfire upside down through the energon bars was marginally more interesting than Skyfire the right way up. If only the big 'bot was closer, he could use the light trick to trace little seeker designs on that smooth, clean armour.

"So," Vortex said. "What're you reading?"

"Nothing that's any of your business," Skyfire replied.

"I was only trying to be friendly." Vortex shuffled closer to the bars and retracted his battle mask. "Ever wondered what energon bars taste like?" he asked.

"No."

"Me either. It hadn't occurred to me to try until now." The explosion was small, but worthwhile. A mouthful of sparks, some residual numbness, and a pleasant tingling feeling along his main fuel lines. "I could do that again."

"If you like," Skyfire said. "It's all the same to me."

"You really are cold," Vortex said, as though the revelation had shocked him. "I wouldn't have thought it, after what Screamer said… Well, I shouldn't say."

"No," Skyfire said, but this time there was a harder edge to his voice. "You shouldn't."

"I hear your name a lot," Vortex mused. Skyfire didn't respond, but his engines were quiet, and the arm which held the datapad was utterly still. Vortex snapped his battle mask back in place and grinned. "Mainly when I'm hoping I'll hear mine, if you get my meaning." Ha! There it was, that blink-and-you'll-miss-it twitch of the right wingtip. Vortex stretched out; the field dressing bolted to the hole in his back scraped against the floor. "I remember back in Kaon," he said. "In the early days when Megsy was just starting out. There was always something off about Screamer, y'know? Like he was missing something."

Another tick, this time a slight adjustment of the right leg.

"I think," Vortex said. "I might be looking at that something."

Skyfire huffed, a sigh of fans kicking up. Not for the sake of cooling, Vortex guessed, but to generate noise.

"And you know what?" Vortex said, over the growing hum. "It's one hell of a view."


	4. Briefing

Prowl sighed and set down his datapad. It had been an exhausting few joors.

"Then we are agreed," Optimus said, his image flickering on Teletraan One's large screen. "We are at war, there is no other option."

He sounded tired, regretful, and no wonder. Hot Spot's report had been hard to read, harder still to digest. And as for their new course of action… Prowl shook his head sadly.

"It shouldn't have to come to this," he said. They were Autobots, this wasn't the way they did things.

But Optimus was right; with the situation as it stood, their choices were limited. Starscream had unleashed a monster upon them all, and it needed to be dealt with.

Sparkplug would have said it was a bitter pill to swallow. Prowl thought it an apt metaphor.

Optimus nodded sadly. "I know."

"I'll brief Perceptor," Prowl said. "He'll find a way."

* * *

.

* * *

Blast Off sat at the back of the briefing room, and glared at his team mates' helms. It was the calm before the storm; the long, dull wait for Starscream and his inevitable tirade. Unlike the Air Commander, Blast Off wasn't one to apportion blame, but intel from Swindle strongly indicated that this was Dead End's fault. And, oh look! Not a Stunticon among them. What a surprise.

Four Combaticons felt little different than five. It was quieter without Vortex, but not by much. Swindle still schemed, Onslaught still plotted, and Brawl still did whatever stupid thing entered his processor without any thought as to the consequences. They didn't yet know if they could still combine, but Blast Off was sure Onslaught would make them find out.

Blast Off hunched down in his seat and yawned. He considered slipping into recharge; it wasn't as though anyone would notice. No one was looking at him. Slag, they weren't even looking at each other. He offlined his optics and focused on the subtle hum of the ship's systems.

It was barely five astroseconds before the whine of jet engines could be heard in the corridor, followed by the close clatter of footsteps, and the far harsher whine of a particular voice.

"I don't suppose I need to tell you why you're here," Starscream began.

Blast Off sighed, and brought his optics back online. The seeker took his place at the podium, hands raised in a gesture that might otherwise have been quite friendly.

"I just have one thing to say," Starscream sneered. "What the slag is wrong with you? He's your gestalt mate, you should know where he is at all times. You should know _how_ he is, and make every effort to pull him out of the effluent that he will inevitably sink himself into. You have a bond. An excellent and highly effective bond far better than any mere comm. link. You know how I know? I programmed it myself! And now look at yourselves. Four fifths of a team that hardly functions at the best of times. You're a disgrace!"

Swindle raised a hand. "We know exactly where Vortex is." he said. "He's in the Autobot brig. What's the problem?"

"Swindle, be quiet," Onslaught hissed.

Starscream appeared to have frozen, mouth open, and optics blazing.

"Well, he is," Swindle said. "And it's not like they're gonna _do_ anything to him. They'll go soft like they always do, and he'll be out again before you know it."

"Swindle, I said-"

"Silence!" Starscream yelled. "Do you even know what he did out there?"

Blast Off perked up; this wasn't the usual assault to his auditory sensors.

"You don't, do you?" Starscream leant on the lectern. "Onslaught?"

Onslaught shook his head, but said nothing.

"I didn't think so." The Air Commander smiled, a cruel twist of his faceplates that had nothing to do with good humour. "He fragged a Protectobot," Starscream said. "Hard. The Autobots aren't going to go soft on him. And they certainly aren't going to let him escape. They're planning a trial. Oh yes, _now_ you get it. And if he's convicted - which he will be - they're going to wipe his core processor."

"How do you know that?" Brawl said. By the set of his shoulders, Blast Off guessed that he was going for belligerent disinterest, but he just came off as rattled.

"What do you think Soundwave does all day?" Starscream snapped. "Sit around playing Solitaire?" He made a small adjustment to one of his null rays, which, by apparent coincidence, was aimed at Onslaught's face. "This is your problem," Starscream said. "If you make it my problem, or if you make Megatron think that it's my problem, I will scrap every single one of you and start again from your cold, dead parts. Do you understand?"

Onslaught nodded.

"Good. I'm relieving you from regular duties until the end of this lunar cycle, by which time Vortex _will_ be back with us. You may requisition supplies, and you have the use of repair bay, but aside from that, you're on your own. It's about time you learnt how to function as a team."

Always one to make an entrance, Starscream was also fond of grand exits. Not bothering to wait for questions, he stormed out, the clank of his footsteps far louder than was strictly necessary.

"Well," Onslaught began.

"I'm gonna slag Dead End," Brawl snarled. "He knew what Tex was up to, I'm gonna ram his tailpipe right -"

"You'll do nothing of the sort," Onslaught said. He stood and walked over to the podium. "Vortex got himself into this situation, and we're going to get him out. _All_ of us. Granted, we weren't built for each other, not like the Stunticons. We were thrown together, out of necessity, but we _are_ stronger together, and we _will_ make this work."

"We don't have to," Swindle said. He glanced at the door and lowered his voice. "I know this guy on Monacus, all we have to do is get to the space bridge. I've got the coordinates."

There was a sound very similar to a strangled organic as Onslaught powered up his sonic rifle. "I don't believe you want to do that, Swindle, do you?"

"C'mon!" Swindle said. "If we stay, the Autobots'll slag us. Worse, they'll haul us up on trial too and back we go in the box for the rest of eternity. You want that? I know I don't."

"Yeah." Brawl shuddered. "Me either. But _Monacus?_ That place got bounty hunters."

"What about you?" Onslaught said, and it took a moment for Blast Off to realise that he had become the centre of attention.

"I," he began, then trailed off. Vortex was a right royal pain in the afterburners. All he did was touch and prod and poke. He was sadistic, unpredictable, easily distracted, manipulative, demanding, cruel, and possessive. He was, as one of the Autobots had so memorably dubbed him, the psycho-copter. But he was _their_ psycho-copter. Not that Blast Off was about to say that out loud.

"Megatron will find us," Blast Off said. "No matter how far we go, it will never be far enough. If we desert again, we're as good as offline. Permanently. I agree with Onslaught; we're better off as we are."

"Well, Swindle?" Onslaught crossed his arms and waited.

Swindle glanced at Brawl, then back at Onslaught. "Guys, I mean… Monacus… A new start in a profitable sector. Their law enforcement-"

Onslaught took a step closer to Swindle, rifle still buzzing. "You're nothing without us, Swindle."

"Just a dead mech walking," Blast Off added. "With delusions of business acumen."

"All right, all right!" Swindle stood up, hands in the air. "I'll do it. I'm in."

"Brawl?" Onslaught's rifle became silent.

Brawl nodded. "Yeah, whatever. It's not like we got a choice."

"Really?" said Onslaught. "I think we do. We can choose to make this work for us."

Swindle sighed. "What's the plan?"

"You three go see Hook for a tune-up, then go recharge," Onslaught replied. "I need to think."


	5. Tune up

**Content advice:** implied dub-con, past violence, implied past random human death.

* * *

.

* * *

Onslaught watched the dregs of his team file out of the briefing room. Walking malfunctions, the lot of them. He considered comming Soundwave, but he had a suspicion that requesting extra surveillance on Swindle would be in breach of Starscream's terms. They were Decepticons, 'on your own' meant exactly that.

So, what did he know? Vortex was alive; he knew it like he knew the pulse of his own laser core. It was one piece of data circulating around a subroutine that he was loath to activate. But it was at least data, and it told him that Vortex still functioned. For some reason, unlike the rest of them, Vortex hadn't closed himself off to the gestalt bond. Onslaught couldn't work out why, but he was sure he'd get to the bottom of it with time.

Much as he hated to admit it, Starscream was right: the bond was excellent. When they combined, everything just _flowed_; a glorious fusion of instinct and experience, all directing a raw power that even Onslaught could never approach by himself.

But there was always a moment, in the astrosecond that he prepared to merge, when the idea of joining with the others shook him to his very core.

He hated it, this fear of the known. It was worse than the loss of personal integrity; worse even than sharing processor space with Swindle. He suspected that it came from the temporary loss of singular identity and the suspension of higher cognitive function. But knowing where the fear came from and being able to quash it utterly were two different things.

There was a clatter by the door. He looked up; Rumble leant against the jamb, tapping his foot. "Hey Ons," he said. "Clear out, the boss wants the room."

Onslaught gave him a look. Rumble was an impertinent little glitch, but he was an impertinent little glitch with large and powerful friends. There was no point in making something of it, so he left.

The corridor was crowded; shift change and everyone was headed somewhere. It was a ridiculous cacophony, but Onslaught loved it. It reminded him of Kaon, the roads so busy there was no space to transform, the half-heard conversations and glimpses of illicit activity. He barrelled through the centre, a heavy elbow reserved for any mech stupid enough not to move aside.

The mess hall was just as packed. Onslaught glared his way to the front of the energon queue, and found himself a table. Funny how space opened up for him. He sat, just slowly enough to let a smaller mech vacate the chair, and sighed. Yes, just like Kaon. If he dimmed his optics, he could almost imagine that the hum of the Nemesis' engines was the distant whirr of machinery at the heart of Cybertron.

And, just like Kaon, there was always some idiot waiting to spoil the mood.

Motormaster stalked into the room, Drag Strip and Wildrider close on his heels. He dumped himself in the seat opposite Onslaught, in a pose he obviously thought of as intimidating. The smaller mechs loitered by the door, exuding an attitude of easy arrogance.

"Good afternoon," Onslaught said. His battle mask slid away and he took a sip of energon. He didn't need another layer of metal to hide his true opinion from such an ungracious, unsubtle upstart.

"I've been hearing rumours," Motormaster glowered. He revved his engine, and the table vibrated. Onslaught lifted his cube to prevent the contents from slopping around.

"Have you really?" he said. It was a shame Vortex wasn't here. He'd have had something to say about the scratches on Motormaster's forearms, the dented wrist plating and curious scorch marks on his fingers. Vortex always noticed the details, the little things that could be used for leverage, the things that would hurt.

Motormaster leaned forward and lowered his voice. "What are you looking at?" he snarled.

Onslaught shrugged, the gentle movement bringing his turret cannons forward ever so slightly.

"I hear you lost a 'copter," Motormaster growled. "What's more, I hear your goons think my team had something to do with it."

Onslaught shrugged again. He swilled his cube, watching the pink liquid spin. "This is an internal matter," he said after a long pause. "It doesn't concern you."

Another rev of his engine, and Motormaster's massive fist slammed down on the table. The room's chatter faded to silence. "Just keep your glitches away from my cars," he growled. "You got that?"

He stood to go, but Onslaught beckoned him back. Motormaster leaned in, radiating hostility with the overbearing heat of his engine. Now, Onslaught thought, what would Vortex do?

Onslaught leaned forward, his right hand beside Motormaster's, index finger laid lightly on the damaged plating of his wrist. "Megatron been playing a little rough, has he?" Onslaught whispered. Motormaster's optics flared, a dazzling purple blaze, then he turned on his heel and stormed out of the rec. room, the smaller Stunticons hurrying after him.

Onslaught sat back, energon in hand, and settled down to think.

* * *

.

* * *

Swindle lay on a platform in medbay and stared at the ceiling. He should have left when he had the chance; he could have been halfway to Monacus already. He didn't see why they needed Vortex back. He was a sadistic maniac with a dirty processor and a wandering interface cable. What did _he_ have to contribute to the team?

"Stupid fraggin' 'copter," Swindle grumbled. "And who does Onslaught think he is? Aimin' that fraggin' gun at me."

He huffed as Hook tugged out a diagnostic probe. The tune-up had been altogether too rough as far as Swindle was concerned.

"If you'd kept your mouth shut," Hook said. "That would have been a whole lot quicker."

On the next platform over, Brawl ground his knuckles together. "Dead End knew he was going," he snarled. "How come Dead End knew and we didn't? I'm gonna frag him so bad he won't know what planet he's on."

"Stop that," Hook said. "You'll break the bearings." Brawl ignored him.

Long Haul appeared out of nowhere - at least nowhere Swindle could see - and yanked Brawl's arms apart.

"Hey, gerrof!" Brawl yelled; he writhed, kicking out his legs. "My hands!"

"Indeed," Hook said. Long Haul leant his weight on Brawl's chassis, pinning him down. Swindle decided to make a break for it.

"Swindle," Hook said. "If you move any closer to the edge of that platform before I say you can, I'm going to put you out. With my fist."

"What!" Swindle cried. "I'm not moving!" How did he know? The fragger wasn't even looking at him. But Long Haul was, he realised. Stupid gestalt bond.

"Course you're not," Hook said. He probed Brawl's optics with something that looked suspiciously like a laser scalpel.

"Hehe, that tickles."

Swindle realised that he was grinding his denta together, and turned over. Slag, he'd forgotten Blast Off was with them. There he lay, silent as the void between worlds. What a spare part, Swindle thought. He turned back, quickly, before that idea could take root.

That was the kind of thinking that would get him killed.

* * *

.

* * *

"You should get a battle mask," Brawl said; five astroseconds of silence was too much for him. "You're the only one of us that hasn't got one."

"Nah," Swindle replied. "How would people see my winning smile?"

"Quiet," Hook growled. The vibration ran right the way up Brawl's main fuel line, making him tingle.

"Good point," Brawl said. "Hey, Long Haul, how come you just got heavier?" Long Haul didn't answer, so Brawl glanced back at Swindle. Now there was a mech who needed a drink. "Hey, Swindle," he said, using their private comm. link. "You really wanna go recharge after this, or you wanna go _over_charge?" He squirmed as Hook retrieved his instruments.

"The second one," Swindle snapped back over the comm. "Oh that'd go down so well right now." Aloud he said, "Hey, Hook, we free to go yet?"

For some reason, Hook gave Swindle a long look before responding. "Yeah," he said, eventually. "Sure."

"Woohoo!" Brawl sprang off the platform. Frag, it was good to be out from under Long Haul. He paused a moment to stretch, torn between the thought of high grade and the image of pounding Dead End's face into the floor. A glint of violet caught his attention a few berths down. Blast Off was looking at him.

Brawl cocked his head to one side, but Blast Off didn't speak, he didn't even open a comm. link. He just lay there, like he was sick or something.

Swindle smacked Brawl on the shoulder. "Come on then!"

"Sure," Brawl said. As he followed Swindle out of repair bay, he could have sworn that Blast Off was watching them leave.

* * *

.

* * *

What a surprise, Brawl and Swindle had - again - left him behind. And all because Swindle wanted a good stiff drink. Wants a good stiff beating, Blast Off thought. Teach him to keep his private comms to himself.

So, here he was, alone in a room with two members of a fully functional and particularly smug-looking gestalt. No, he corrected himself, make that three. Scrapper had appeared by the parts rack, searching for something. Oh Sigma, three of them. He didn't need this.

"Are you always this tense?" Hook asked.

"I'm not tense!" Blast Off forced his fists to unclench, so as to prove the point. He braced himself while Hook removed the covering from his engine block. He didn't want to squirm; he couldn't suffer the shame of being held down by Long Haul, the very idea made his tanks lurch. "Just get it over with."

"You're not tense?" Long Haul said; he leaned against a table and crossed his arms. "Yeah, and Swindle's on the level."

Blast Off didn't condescend to respond, but focused all his energies into remaining still while Hook poked and prodded at his innards.

"What the..." Hook began. He reached for a pair of very long and very sharp-looking tweezers. Blast Off focused even harder on not moving. Hook rooted around. After a moment, the tweezers emerged, holding something small and white.

"What in the pit is that?" Long Haul gaped.

"Femur," Blast Off hazarded. "Could be a rib."

"It's... human," Hook reported, as though he found the idea simultaneously intriguing and repellent.

"That," said Long Haul, "is disgusting."

"On come on!" Blast Off glared up at him. "You can't tell me you've never got organic debris stuck in your transformation mechanism before."

"Vegetation?" Long Haul replied. "Frequently. Birds, every so often, sometimes something bigger. But never a human. Even Motormaster hasn't managed that."

"Not for want of trying," Scrapper said. Oh no, now he was headed over too. Were they going to summon the rest of the team to gawp and laugh? "What the slag have you been doing?"

"Yeah," Hook continued. "How _did_ you manage that?" Blast Off looked down in horror as the Constructicon eased the tweezers into a particularly tight gap.

"Accidentally!" Blast Off squeaked. The probing didn't hurt, exactly - although it certainly didn't feel good, all that horrible _tickling_ - but the indignity burned. The Unfortunate Squishy Incident had been weeks ago. He'd wasted an entire recharge cycle cleaning nasty pink bits out of his systems while Vortex just sat there covered in dead organic filth, laughing his head off; how in the name of Vector Sigma had he missed this?

"Oh look," Hook said. "There's more." Slag, it sounded as though he was enjoying this. "It's going to take a while to clean you out."

Blast Off sighed; that was just what he needed. "So be it," he muttered.

Long Haul and Scrapper watched in horrified fascination as Hook extracted another small bone fragment. Blast Off dimmed his optics and thought of Cybertron.


	6. Prowl, we have a problem

**Content advice:** verbal sexual harassment.

* * *

.

* * *

"We have an issue," Skyfire said. Prowl checked his internal chronometer; just half a breem until the end of his shift, couldn't this have waited? He scoured the thought from his short-term memory and tried to appear alert.

"Bumblebee?" he asked.

"Not directly, no. Our prisoner." Skyfire met Prowl's optics. "I think we should be very careful who goes into the brig. Vortex has… a way with words."

"You need to recharge," Prowl said. Skyfire opened his mouth to protest, but Prowl raised a hand. "No, you really do. You've been up, what, four cycles straight? It isn't right. Go, rest, I'll take the night shift."

"I'm not the only one who's been up too long," Skyfire said. "Is Ironhide available? Or Warpath? Someone steadfast, someone who won't be curious enough to listen to him."

"They've already set off for Europe," Prowl said. He checked the duty roster, the blue light of the datapad dancing on his fingertips. "It's either me, Wheeljack or Perceptor."

"Then I suggest Perceptor," Skyfire said. "But I want a word with him first."

* * *

.

* * *

Skyfire left around mid afternoon and didn't come back. Neither did the inquisitive yellow 'bot with the grabbable little horns.

There was a window high on the opposite wall. Vortex watched the sky shift from cerulean to umber to a glowing blue like the sign of his favourite bar back in Kaon. Eight months since they'd moved into Combaticon HQ, but it was still a novelty to watch the sky change colour. You'd never get that on the Nemesis.

As for the things you _could_ get on the Nemesis, he could do with at least four of them, starting with a few dozen gallons of high grade, and ending with a good hard overload. He didn't care who with.

He clambered onto the narrow berth, and avoided plugging himself into the forced recharge port. Most of his systems were down, conserving energy, but he couldn't fly so he didn't need them. Basic functions were fine, and would continue to be fine for a while. Let the Autobots think that he was critically under-energised, it might lead them to do something interesting.

The sky had turned to a glittering black before the door to the brig hissed open and another 'bot walked in.

Vortex lay still, optics dimmed. The newcomer had a light tread - much smaller than Skyfire, but larger than the yellow 'bot. He walked slowly, each step measured, as though careful not to make too much noise. Concerned about waking the prisoner?

Vortex spun over as though startled, tumbling off the edge of the berth. The new mech gasped, and in that sound Vortex knew he'd played it the right way.

"What's going on?" Vortex whimpered, scooting back to the far end of his cell and hugging his knees to his chest. "Who's there?"

A grey face peered through the energon bars, a barrel like Soundwave's rocket launcher on his shoulder. Not a gun, though. Vortex forced a shudder through his frame.

"I know you," he said. "You're Perceptor."

"Well done," Perceptor replied.

Hmm, not quite as easy on the eye as Skyfire, but just as easy on the audio receptors.

"I need you to stand up." Perceptor said. He was close to the bars, but not close enough.

"Why?" Vortex summoned another shudder and gripped his knees so tightly the metal began to dent.

"I need to inspect your injuries," Perceptor replied. He glanced at Vortex' damaged hand and made a quiet humming sound. "You don't have to come close to the bars, just stand up and turn your back to me."

"I'm fine," Vortex said. "You don't need to see."

"Just stand up," Perceptor urged. There was no edge to his voice, no lurking impatience. "You can trust me."

Curious choice of words. "I don't know," Vortex muttered. "I'll…" He paused, lowered his head.

"Yes?"

"I'll do it if you'll talk to me."

"All right," Perceptor agreed. "Put your hands on your head and stand up."

Slowly, Vortex complied.

"Now turn around."

Vortex did so, twisting his head so that he could look at Perceptor through the cook of his arm. Perceptor did not transform, but seemed to study him via the barrel of his shoulder appendage; it was strange, but a bit dull.

"That all looks to be in order," Perceptor said. "You may recharge now."

"But…" Vortex said, leaving his hands where they were and turning to get a better view of Perceptor's face. He lowered his voice and introduced just the slightest crackle of static. "You promised you'd talk to me."

"I did," Perceptor said. He took a seat at the other side of the room and crossed his legs. A small light flickered on above him. "And now the talking is over. You may recharge, and I will sit here and catch up on my reading."

Vortex lay down, carefully, on his stomach. His recharge socket buzzed, alerted by the proximity of the berth's cable. He ignored it. "What are you reading?" he asked.

"The psychology of interrogation," Perceptor said. His lips curved at one side, a smirk only half hidden.

So, that game was up, but perhaps there was a different way to play this.

"Pull the other one," Vortex said, sloughing off the meekness like an old paint job. "Seriously, what are you reading?"

"I'm looking at some human publications." Perceptor pulled a folder from a compartment in his arm. "'The Journal of Cognitive Science', 'Nature', that sort of thing." With the subtlest of sounds, his fingers narrowed until they were delicate enough to lift the tiny, squishy-scale pages.

Like claws, Vortex thought. Nice and slim, the kind that could slide along any seam; now there was a thought to warm his CPU. And it came with a rather intriguing idea.

"Talk to me?" Vortex whispered.

"I don't think so," Perceptor replied.

"Please?"

Perceptor clamped his lips together and shook his head.

Vortex rolled over, using his own slender claws to trace the curves of his neck plating. Two of his fingers were too damaged to transform, but his self repair had done a decent job on the rest. "So cruel," he said. "No one wants to talk to me."

"And why is that, do you suppose?" It was still that same patient tone, only now it had begun to sound a little forced.

Vortex made a small noise, halfway between a sigh and a whimper. He dug his claws in deeper; Perceptor didn't seem to have a problem with dim lighting, so he should be able to see where those claws were headed. "You tell me," he replied.

"Nice try," Perceptor sniffed.

Vortex traced the outline of his interface panel. It wasn't exactly doing anything for him, but Perceptor's growing discomfort was highly amusing. "Will you read to me?"

Perceptor turned a page, optics flickering. "Were I to read aloud," he said. "It would have a pronounced negative effect on my productivity."

You bet it would, Vortex thought. "Hmm, are you telling me you can't divide your attention between two different data streams?"

"No. I'm telling you that I won't," Perceptor said pleasantly. The next part was uttered so quietly that Vortex almost missed it. "Not for you, anyway."

Vortex grinned. "Why not?"

"That should be self evident," Perceptor said. He glanced up, then quickly back down at the flimsy paper journal.

"Then say anything," Vortex purred. "Just as long as you're speaking. You have such a... thrilling voice. Makes me tremble all over."

Perceptor huffed. He stared at the page, but his optics lacked focus, and his posture revealed a new tension.

"Please?"

"No." Another huff, and a slight shift of the feet.

"_Please?_"

"No!"

"Mmmm, that's cute. Say it again."

"Skyfire was right," Perceptor muttered. "We should disable your vocaliser."

Vortex waited until Perceptor glanced his way again - which didn't take long - then winked. "You're so damned hot," he sighed. "I bet there are things running through your processor that you wouldn't dare actually do." He arched his back, the better to display what he was doing with his hands. "You want to punish me, don't you?" He feigned an energy spike. "You're just itching to-"

"That's enough," Perceptor snapped, but Vortex continued regardless, a long list of whispered suggestions which - he was pleased to note - made the Autobot quiver with rage.

"We are _not_ like you," Perceptor said. "And stop pretending that I'm turning you on, it's ... it's unconvincing!"

Vortex laughed; the Autobot couldn't lie to save his life. "Keep talking," he murmured.

"All right then," Perceptor said, and this time the anger rang loud and clear in his voice. "I will keep talking, you horrible Decepticon. You're a sham. I can see right through you. You only inflict pain and humiliation on others because it fills the void. You're empty, you're lonely, you have no love, no warmth; there's nothing good in your life. No-one wants anything to do with you because you're vile. So you seek attention in other ways, but it's always the wrong attention. I don't need to ask if I'm right, I _know_ I am." One of the journals slipped from his knee and he grabbed at it, spearing the paper with his transformed fingers. "And another thing, you think your comrades are coming for you? You're wrong. They don't care about you, no one does. The sooner you're back in suspension, the better."

Suspension? Vortex froze. Oh frag no, they wouldn't... Would they? He forced his hands to continue their exploration, digging sharp channels along his strangely numb transformation seams; he pulled a giddy laugh from his memory banks, to drown out the frantic scream growing in his processor: _not the box, not the box, not the box.._. "Hehehehe, keep going!"

Perceptor sighed, his face in his hands. "I'm not cut out for this."


	7. An unexpected visitor

**Content advice:** mention of rape, verbal sexual harassment, violence (imagined and actual).

* * *

.

* * *

"Well, that didn't go so..." _Badly? _Prowl paused in the face of self-delusion.

"Well?" Skyfire suggested.

Prowl nodded. Over on a workbench, Perceptor huddled in microscope form. Wheeljack loitered nearby, concern evident in the slope of his shoulders.

"I ought to..." Prowl began, glancing at the door. "I should go check on him."

"Yeah, just go," Wheeljack said. "He'll be OK, won't you Percy?"

The microscope remained inert.

* * *

.

* * *

_Not the box, not the box, not the box_… the words seemed to bounce around his cell, a dizzying cacophony that grated on his sensors and made it difficult to think.

Slag thinking. It was all he'd been able to do in the Detention Centre. No sensation there; just him, alone with his thoughts for vorn after vorn after… Couldn't go back to that, not now. He had to get out.

He lay on the berth, one arm outstretched, fingertips brushing against the tingling field of the energon bars. Perhaps he could short them… Breakdown had managed it, it couldn't be so hard. It was all a case of resonant frequencies.

Not that he had enough fuel to try that kind of vibration. Well, if he wanted to be able to run anywhere afterwards. Slag. He snarled and slapped the bars. The recoil sent him back several feet, and made him tingle from his helm to his heels. He did it again, harder, and the recoil sent him halfway across the berth.

This wasn't like when he'd licked them; this was far better.

There was a strange noise, a static hissing over a faint background hum of machinery. Silence. It was a while before the voice came back – _not the box, not the box, not the box_ – but it was quieter, a pale echo of what it had been before. In the distance, an alarm sounded.

Vortex stood, smiling under his battle mask, and flattened himself against the back wall of his cell. Licking had been too gentle, obviously; the Autobots rewarded that kind of thing. He sprang at the energon bars. There was hardly space to run, but he hit them _hard_. The force thrust him back against the far wall, and left him sprawling in the middle of the floor, gyros dancing and a high, happy laugh caught somewhere in his vocaliser.

He picked himself up and tried again. This time, the recoil saw him ricochet from the bars to the back wall, which he hit at an angle, to the wall opposite his berth. Sparks crackled across his armour and tingled in his new dents. This was fun. Not as much fun as he wanted, but enough to subdue the voices.

He tried a third time, landing face down at the side of his berth, his armour crawling. It wasn't worth hoping that the alarm had anything to do with rescue. But it could bring an Autobot or two. Someone to speak to. Perhaps the little yellow bot, who he was pretty sure must be Bumblebee. Perhaps Skyfire.

His interface panel tingled; unexpected, but not unwelcome. He dimmed his optics and thought of Skyfire's thighs, his strong arms and pristine, white plating. Another buzz of static. He thought of straddling Skyfire's hips, of carving his name into that beautiful armour; of those large hands holding him, squeezing him.

"You didn't have to do that," a stern voice said. The charge dissipated.

Vortex looked up, his scowl hidden. The moon had begun to rise in the distant high window, illuminating one of the Autobot cars. The one who thought he upheld the law.

"You're not Skyfire," Vortex growled. "Get out."

"You're in no position to make demands," the Autobot said. Vortex hauled himself upright, swaying slightly, and leapt at the bars. The Autobot flinched. This time, the force was less, and Vortex landed against the far wall, skidding on his landing wheels, his chest plating scorched and paint smouldering. He grinned.

The Autobot went over to the outer door and pressed a few buttons on a console. The alarm stopped. "Look," he said. "Things will go far easier for you if you just settle down."

Vortex tried to stand, but his gyros glitched, and the floor rose up to meet him. "I'm settled," he murmured. There was something pleasant about the after-effects of the bars, like hovering on the very edge of recharge. "Wh's Prime?" Vortex asked. Perhaps next time, he could summon enough force to rebound from the wall and back again. A double hit. That would be _good_…

The Autobot approached his cell again, a silver-limned silhouette, hands on hips and feet slightly apart. Damned fool was trying to look imposing.

"Too important to deal with the likes of you," he said.

Vortex suppressed a giggle. "If he was here… he'd see me," he announced, but his vision swam and he missed the Autobot's reaction. He managed to crawl back to the bars, and leant his head against the gently buzzing field. It was euphoric, a tantalising taste of deep recharge. Slag, the damned things were engineered to tranquillise. Vortex forced the tension from his frame before the Autobot noticed. "Gonna come in here and tie me up?" Vortex asked. He slurred the words, forcing a glitch into his vocaliser as though his systems were closing down. "I could play with your little door wings. Would you like that?"

The answer was obvious. The Autobot shifted, self-conscious. Vortex mumbled a few nonsense syllables, offlined his optics, and listened.

After a few astroseconds, the Autobot simply walked away.

* * *

.

* * *

The bars emitted a subtle, pulsing tone. Vortex could only hear it with his audio sensor touching the field; it was a soporific, enticing him to suspend all non-essential functions and slip into recharge. As soon as the brig door closed, Vortex heaved himself away from them and clambered back onto the berth. Stupid Autobot with his stupid boring voice and his dull little groundpounder body. Vortex could think of a few uses for those door wings; and afterwards, they'd look good mounted over his recharge station back at Combaticon HQ.

The brig door reopened barely a minute later and closed quickly. Light footsteps, hesitant and uneven. Vortex smiled; he knew who this was.

"I can hear you," he whispered. "You're Bumblebee, right? Did you bring me some high grade?"

The small 'bot kept to the shadows, seemingly unaware that security systems tended to react to such things as heat signatures and energy readings, not just the difference between light and shade. Whoever was watching the monitors would soon notice him, and he'd be evicted. Vortex tilted his head, the better to see through the bars. Might as well have some fun while he could.

The little 'bot didn't respond. He paused, concealed from view by the portion of wall at the front of the cell. There was a small click, as of one mechanical part sliding neatly past another.

"Don't move," the newcomer said, but his voice was wrong. It crackled, emotion hidden under static. "If you move, I will kill you."

The 'bot stepped into view, hornless helm lit by the moon. He was taller than expected, more Vortex' own size. In the gloom, red showed up as black, a dark chassis and helm, a pale visor, pale arms. A collection of sloping planes and soft angles, all crying out to be touched. And that delicate, graspable waist. Vortex sighed; oh Sigma yes. First Aid was so… enticing.

"I'm not moving," he replied. After all, he could do nothing about the happy shudder which ran the full length of his back struts. He stared past the barrel of First Aid's photon pistol, watching the play of reflected light on the edges of his interface panel. "What else do you want me to do?"

"I want you to listen," First Aid said, that same burr in his voice. "Then I want you to talk."

Vortex looked up. First Aid was trembling, but his aim didn't need to be steady. The gaps between the energon bars were wide enough, and it wasn't as though there was anywhere to hide. Still, it was First Aid. Vortex retracted his battle mask, and resisted running his glossa over his lips. He smiled. "Anything for you."

First Aid covered his right hand with his left, stabilising his aim. "I want you to answer my question," he began. "And I want you to do so truthfully." He adjusted his footing, so insecure, so fragile. And so close; Vortex could almost reach out, slender talons in the gaps between the bars, and - "Don't move!" First Aid spat. "Stay still on that bunk or so help me, I will deactivate you."

"As you say." Vortex turned his main engine over, a gentle purr in the darkened brig.

First Aid paused. Vortex expected him to glance up at the cameras, but his gaze was unwavering. So, the Protectobot had turned them off; or was there someone sympathetic in the control room?

"Why did you do it?" First Aid said. He coughed the static from his voice. "What you did to Blades. Why?"

Vortex's talons twitched. "That's an interesting question," he mused. No need to rush, First Aid had all the time in the world. He shifted, folding his arms under his chin. The gun juddered, but the Protectobot did not shoot.

"The truth," First Aid repeated. "Out with it."

Why not? Vortex thought. He'd never been so close to First Aid for so long, not since that time Defensor blew up Bruticus. But this was different, and he had the distinct feeling that being closer to First Aid could be a wonderful thing indeed.

"Blades did something for me," Vortex said. "It… helped pass the time. I did something for him in return." That was it, choose the words carefully, watch for his reactions. Speak in euphemisms, but ones which he can easily translate.

"You did something for him?" First Aid repeated. "He told you no. You…"

"I what?" Vortex said. "I made him overload. And? You needn't be jealous." Vortex waited, watched for any change in First Aid's stance, any adjustment in the angle of his head. Deliberately missing the point was all well and good, but there was only so far you could push it. "He'd already done the same for me. Did he tell you that?"

"He didn't want to," First Aid said. "What's wrong with you? You thought you were doing him a favour?"

"What if I'd killed him?" Vortex said. First Aid's slight yet perceptible flinch was perfect. "We are, after all, enemies. Would that have been any better?"

First Aid wavered, his grip tightening on the trigger.

Vortex rested his chin on his hands. The Protectobot medic was glorious, an intriguing combination of strength and brittle vulnerability. Similar hands to Blades, to those strong, pale fingers which had made Vortex overload so hard his systems shut down. But an altogether different frame, attractive in its own way. The 'bot held himself well, all things considered; poise and balance, with only a subtle tremor of anxiety. How good he'd look sprawled on the floor, those beautiful hands held tight above his head, back arched in overload.

"You do know what you did is wrong, don't you?" First Aid said. Again, that crackle in his voice, that film of emotion coating every word. Regret, frustration, concern for his team mate, all spun around with a healthy dose of guilt. Vortex forced his expression into a facsimile of Dead End's dull fatalism; it was time for a change of pace.

"Have you ever been in suspension?" Vortex asked. There was no response. He glared up at First Aid's visor, managed to hold his gaze. "Have you?"

Slowly, reluctantly, First Aid shook his head.

"There's no sensation," Vortex continued, _not like here_. "There's no input. No visual, no auditory, no… tactile. Nothing, for cycle after cycle after cycle until you begin to forget what light is, what colour is, what it is to touch and be touched, to feel and live and-" He stopped, looked down. A little close to home, but that gave it an edge, something First Aid for all his medical training couldn't miss.

"That's… Why are you telling me this?" First Aid demanded.

Because you haven't run away, Vortex thought. Because you're so intensely fuckable that I'd even frag Swindle for a cycle or two alone with you. "Because I meant it," he said.

"Meant what?"

"What I said earlier. That…" Oh frag, that flicker of confusion, that subtle, cautious tilt to his posture; this was better than watching seekers bond. "That I'd do anything for you," Vortex finished quietly.

"Don't… don't say that." First Aid huffed.

"You wanted honesty," Vortex countered. "Oh Sigma, your hands…" he stopped, as though catching himself saying something he knew he shouldn't. First Aid shivered. "I'm…" No, it would be too much to apologise, but just enough to give the impression of having tried. "Perceptor told me what's going to happen. I… I don't understand Autobots." Sigma, please make those energon bars disappear. _Please_. "But if they were all like you, making the effort would be worthwhile." After all, enthusiastic consensual fragging could be damned hot. He clawed his processor away from that particular thought; he didn't need his core temperature rising so high that his wiring began to melt.

"What are you trying to say?" First Aid asked, carefully. "That you'd defect? I can't believe that."

_Do you want to believe it?_ "My team mates closed the gestalt bond," Vortex said. "They won't link with me unless we're combining."

Now _that_ got a reaction. The photon pistol drooped a little, First Aid leaned forward. His vocaliser crackled, as though he wanted to speak, but couldn't quite find the words.

Vortex raised the pitch of his engine, to cover the subtle whirr of his cooling system. Good thing he was laying on his front; his interface hardware practically buzzed. "What were you going to say?" Vortex asked.

For a while First Aid just stood there, still and silent. Then he lowered the pistol. Vortex didn't dare move; First Aid defenceless was an incitement to do something deliciously violent, and he was already so charged.

"Can't do this," First Aid said, so quiet it was almost a sigh. There was a slight hum in the air, the signature of an encrypted signal. When he spoke again, his voice was distant, an echo of his internal comms. "I'm sorry," he said.

First Aid raised the gun and fired.


	8. The master plan

"So," said Onslaught. "What do we know?" His gun barrels gleamed in the moonlight, bright against the dark bulk of Combaticon HQ. A chill breeze wound its way through the crater, kicking up dust, while Lazerbeak circled far overhead, a sinister blot against the stars.

"Frag all," Swindle responded. Onslaught watched him fidget; the little reprobate never had been any good with open spaces. "What do you want to know next?"

"Ignoramus," Blast Off sniffed. "We know he's in the Autobot brig. We know that's towards the rear of the Ark, which means that it shouldn't be buried too deeply within the mountain, if at all. We also know that he will be well-guarded, and that Prime is due back tomorrow."

"Then what are we waiting for?" said Brawl. "Let's go get 'em!"

Blast Off shook his head. "This is a rescue mission, not a gung ho, all-guns-blazing free-for-all!"

Brawl went to protest, but Onslaught raised his hand. "Blast Off's right," he said. "We mustn't lose sight of the objective."

"I thought the objective was saving our sorry afts," Swindle muttered. He dug the end of his foot in the dirt, uprooting a cactus.

Onslaught gave Swindle a long, hard look. "And how are we going to do that?" he prompted. Swindle returned his gaze, lips set in a stiff line.

"Oh, I know that one!" Brawl shouted. Swindle turned and glared at him; the tank clenched his fists. "Well, I do," he said. "I'm not sayin' we go in and kick aft and forget the other stuff. We got better guns and all, I say we shoot our way in, bag the 'copter and shoot our way out. Easy."

"Not necessarily," Onslaught replied. "Aside from matters of pure logistics, Blast Off's surveillance indicates that Wheeljack has extended the security perimeter by several miles. In order to get close enough to access the brig, we will - at the very least - require a certain degree of subterfuge, and a diversion."

"Surveillance?" Swindle gaped. "Since when?"

"Since today," Blast Off said. "When I was busy _working_, while you and Idle Processor here were recovering from your overcharge."

"What exactly are you implying?" Swindle growled. Beside him, Brawl tensed.

"Stop, now," Onslaught said. "Swindle, it was not an implication, it was explicit: you're a lazy, selfish glutton. Unless you have anything constructive to say, you will shut the frag up. Blast Off, stop goading them, it's beneath you."

Blast Off vented sand from his intakes and leaned against a boulder. Swindle's engine growled, but he didn't speak. Brawl relaxed.

"All right," Onslaught said. "Who remembers that job on the senatorial palace?"

Swindle's optics narrowed. "_No_..." he whispered, something like nostalgia glimmering in the violet glass. "You're not suggesting..."

Brawl glanced up at Lazerbeak. "There was that diamond," he said. "Yeah? Biggest slaggin' see-through rock I ever saw."

"It was heavy," Blast Off huffed. "Not to mention sharp."

Swindle sighed.

"Didn't Megsy want it for that massive gun thing?" Brawl asked, making cannon shapes in the moonlight with his hands.

Swindle nodded, slowly. "The Aegis Program," he mused. "Yeah, I remember. Good times..." He sank into silence, and Onslaught waited.

The Detention Centre had lasted an eternity, alone in the dark with only their memories to call upon. It made them unstable, gave them insecurities, but it also opened up cracks where he might be able to wedge a lever.

"So," said Swindle, after a while. "Crazy copter's the package, Blast Off's the getaway, Brawl's the diversion, and it's you and me going in?"

Onslaught nodded. It was impressive how well Swindle remembered a plan if it had anything to do with personal gain.

Brawl huffed. "I never get to go in."

"But you _do_ get to blow things up," Blast Off said, in what he probably thought was an encouraging tone, but which just came off as condescending. "Big things. Skyfire's at the Ark."

Brawl's visor lit up. "Really?"

Onslaught nodded. "Along with the scientific crew, the SIC and a few grunts. Ironhide's gone, so the only real problems will be Prowl and Prime."

Brawl cracked his knuckles happily. "Gonna smash his big white aft..."

"Well," Swindle said, using his heel to grind the cactus into squishy grey paste. "We know the plan. Why are we still out here?"

Brawl gave him a curious glance.

"An experiment," Onslaught said. The next words threatened to stick in his vocaliser. There was no reason to do this, not here, not now… Except there was. They had to know; _he_ had to know. Especially after that incident with Brawl. "Combaticons, transform and combine."

He'd expected a chorus of 'I don't want to' and 'why should I bother?', but to his surprise they complied. He'd almost hoped they wouldn't. He gritted his denta, and thrust himself past the point of no return and into the combination.

Along with the objections, he'd also expected a loss of balance, but that, likewise, did not come. Melding smoothly with Blast Off, he felt Swindle and Brawl connect effortlessly beneath him, the bulk of Bruticus emerging impossibly fast from its constituent parts.

Only one thing was wrong.

An absence to his right. A void where there should have been a frantic whirl of tactile memory and cruel, cold impulses. Instead, there was a sharp stinging ache from the gestalt programming as it struggled for a completeness it could not achieve.

To Onslaught's surprise, their combined form held together. It hadn't before, when Swindle betrayed them all, and Brawl's personality component was lost. But Brawl was one of the legs, Vortex one of the arms - there was logic in it holding together now.

The final connection clicked into place, and Onslaught lost himself in the slew of input and slow, ponderous thought that was Bruticus.

* * *

.

* * *

Something was wrong. Missing. Bruticus looked down. His left arm was... somewhere else.

"Where?" He spoke the word aloud, and the gestalt bond answered in a barrage of image-intuition-feeling.

Injured. In recharge. Separate and self-contained. Not conscious. But Bruticus reached out anyway, using the connection to tug at him, wake him up, make him come back.

It failed.

He needed to go, to fetch. Find what was missing, and reunite with it.

But a nudge from the driving part of him - the central part - told him that was for later. Now was for... Target practice. Shooting cactuses and strange see-through mechs in the dust bowl.

Not shooting the metal bird wheeling above his head.

Not shooting his own foot, although he came close. It was hard to keep his balance, and he used the thrusters that belonged to his good arm just to stay upright.

Now was time for flying, for smashing things, for testing his abilities.

And all the while, his many engines emitted a steady growl, his vocaliser a staticky hiss. He was missing a major part of himself. And it _hurt_.


	9. Bumblebee returns

Vortex awoke to a world of sensation. The blazing sting of light, the stench of smoke, a low zing of electricity where someone had hooked him up to the forced recharge port.

Damage indicators pinged from his every system. The bitter tang of old energon slimed his glossa, and a light breeze drifted over him like diamond dust.

He turned on his side, groaning, but no sound came out. Slag, his auditory processors... But that wasn't right; he could hear the whirr of machinery, the distant call of desert birds.

_What in the Pit…_ he tried to speak, but again nothing. The pings from his jaw coalesced into a tight knot of pain.

He sat up, the forced-recharge cable pulling taut. He yanked it from his socket, engine growling. But still nothing emerged from his vocaliser.

Tentatively, he felt along his jaw. Battle mask still retracted, slight tenderness to faceplates, lower lip abraded. And a Pit-spawned fragging hole through his lower mandible, right the way into his throat. Oh, the kinky little glitch. First Aid had shot out his vocaliser.

Vortex would have laughed, had he been able. As it was, he buried his face in the soft padding of the berth, quivering with the humour. If only he'd stayed awake to see what First Aid had done next. It would have been so telling.

"What are you doing now?" A familiar voice intruded. "You crying or something?"

Vortex looked up, giving his visitor an excellent view of his ruined throat and wide, gleeful smile.

"Okay." Bumblebee fidgeted. He was standing closer to the bars this time, but still out of claws' reach. "What you do that for?"

Huh? Vortex's smile vanished and he cocked his head to one side. _Are you glitching?_ he tried to say.

"What?"

Frag, the 'bot was stupid, couldn't even lip read. Vortex shuffled onto the edge of the berth and used his finger to press temporary letters into the springy covering. 'ARE YOU GLITCHING?'

"No. What?" The Autobot leaned forwards. "Hey, you can write English."

'HEY, YOU CAN READ. MORON.'

"Slag you," Bee said. "What happened to you anyway, you get on the wrong side of Skyfire?"

Vortex shook his head. If First Aid's visit was common knowledge, this 'bot would probably know. And if not… well, better to wait and see. 'HIGH GRADE?'

"You'll be lucky," Bee said. "What happened to your canopy?"

That's my chassis, Vortex thought. Sigma, minibots were thick. 'LAWBOT KNOW YOU'RE IN HERE?' he wrote.

"What? Prowl, nah. Wheeljack sent me." Bumblebee slammed his mouth shut, cringing.

'WHY?'

The minibot didn't answer, as though silence now would make up for opening his mouth a moment ago.

Vortex re-emphasised the letters, then watched as the surface regained its former smoothness.

"You look like someone shot you," Bee said. "Was it Prowl?"

Sure, why not? Vortex nodded.

Bumblebee snickered. "Didn't think he had it in him."

'WANT ROTORS BACK,' Vortex wrote. 'TELL BLADES.'

This seemed to strike a chord with the yellow 'bot. His smirk vanished and he stepped back a pace, folding his arms across his chest. "I'm not passing on messages," he said.

'SHAME,' Vortex wrote. 'COULD MAKE IT WORTH YOUR WHILE.'

"Yeah, right," Bee muttered. "Like you have anything I could want."

'HAVE? NO,' Vortex wrote. 'COULD DO? PLENTY.' He drew the pattern of Bumblebee's helm, and traced his fingers along the horns.

"You're sick, you know that?"

'YOU ARE STILL HERE.' Vortex shrugged. He transformed one finger into a claw, then back again. 'WHAT DO YOU WANT?'

Bumblebee didn't answer. He appeared to be thinking, probably searching his memory banks for something witty to say. After a few astroseconds, Vortex's thoughts began to drift towards First Aid. There was no chance he was going back in suspension after that; there was so much to live for.

"Hey, what're you drawing now?" Bumblebee asked. "How come you can draw?"

How come you ask so many stupid questions? Vortex didn't put that one into text, but continued to trace a pattern vaguely reminiscent of a certain Protectobot's waist. An idea was starting to form, one which could be highly entertaining.

Bumblebee's comm. link pinged. He opened the panel on his arm, and a little hologram of Wheeljack's head projected from the mounting. "You done yet, Bee? You know it weren't meant to be a social call, right?"

"Yeah, yeah," Bumblebee replied. "I'm on my way." Huffing and muttering, Bee stomped over to the observation console and picked up a few things from the floor. Perceptor's folder, Vortex realised.

The Autobot crumpled the tiny scraps of paper together and left without another word.

* * *

.

* * *

Prowl dumped his empty cube in the recycling. It was a good day; clear sky, a bit of a breeze. Sunny and Sides were out on a mission, Ironhide had arrived safely in Europe, all was quiet on the Decepticon front, and Wheeljack hadn't blown anything up for a while. If only he didn't have a psychopathic helicopter in the brig and a senior officer having a mental breakdown in the lab, things would be just peachy.

As it was, Optimus was due back in thirty four minutes, Skyfire had spent yet another restless night collating data rather than recharging, Perceptor still hadn't emerged from his alt mode, Vortex had almost shorted the energon bars through sheer force of perverted enjoyment, and as for Bumblebee... Bumblebee was acting very suspiciously indeed.

"Did you just wink at me?" Prowl asked.

Bee paused, grinning. He shuffled the pile of human-scale magazines from one hand to the other, and attempted to nudge Prowl in the chassis with his elbow.

"Way to go with the psycho 'copter," he said, giving what he probably thought was a conspiratorial nod before hurrying on.

All right, Prowl had no idea what was going on there, but at least Bee was headed somewhere that wasn't the brig.

Optimus ETA thirty two minutes and counting. Skyfire better have at least refuelled.

But Skyfire was sat in front of Teletraan One, looking distinctly under-energised.

"Where's Red Alert?" Prowl said. "I thought he was on duty?"

"Gone off to check the security relay," Skyfire said. "He was worried we had a bug."

"What do you think?" Prowl asked.

Skyfire shrugged. "I think he was worried," he said. "Doesn't mean we should be." He yawned, heaving air through his vents. "How're you doing?"

"I'm fine," Prowl said. "Only wish I could say the same about Perceptor."

"Do you know what happened?" Skyfire asked.

Prowl sighed, leaning on a stalagmite. "As far as I can tell, he feels bad about yelling at the 'con."

Skyfire stretched his arms, his ailerons fluttering. "Wish _I'd_ yelled at the 'con," he said. "Wouldn't have achieved anything, but it would have made me feel better."

"What's he doing now?" Prowl said. He didn't want to ask, but with Optimus back in twelve minutes forty seconds, he thought it best to know. Skyfire flicked a switch, and a shot of Vortex's cell appeared on the main screen.

"Oh Sigma," Prowl groaned. "What the slag _is_ he doing?"


	10. Preparations

It was 06:10am, and the sun sat just above the horizon. Long blue shadows overlay the arid landscape, cast by cacti and the occasional wind-bowed tree. In an empty parking lot by a closed gas station, Brawl set the last of the explosives and took a few steps back to admire his handiwork.

He hadn't noticed the ditch.

"Slaggin' awesom-arghhh!"

It was hardly deep, just deep enough to tip his balance, sending him sprawling in a tangle of limbs and caterpillar treads.

"Frag!" he yelled. Then winced as a flock of birds flapped squawking into the sky. A dog started barking a quarter mile or so to the south.

Brawl glanced over at the explosives. The package was primed and ready to go. Good thing the detonator was with Blast Off; with his luck he would have fallen on it and blown himself up along with all this squishy slag.

Brawl huffed and got to his feet. Or at least he tried to. He managed a crouch, before his right leg slid out from under him and he landed back on his aft. Oh, and he couldn't raise his head. What the frag?

He gritted his denta, only just noticing the warning flashing at the bottom of his HUD. _Lower right treads misaligned. Undue pressure on cannon barrel_.

"Oh for scrap's sake!" He punched the ground, leaving a satisfying fist-shaped dent in the mucky concrete. How in all Cybertron – in all the fraggin' _galaxy_ – had he managed to get a caterpillar tread wrapped around the barrel of his cannon?

Another warning began to sound, this one a timer set by Onslaught before the mission began. Half a breem until Optimus Prime would be in just the right place to be distracted by a string of these pathetic little gas stations and a few other stupid human things being blown to kingdom come.

Brawl grinned at the thought, but his smirk vanished as he realised that the few astroseconds of inactivity had failed to untangle him.

His lips sloped in a frown, hidden by his battle mask. Various awkward and embarrassing poses also failed to get his cannon free from his leg. He punched the ground again, snarling. Blast Off thought he was stupid enough as it was, he really didn't want the shuttle to see him like this.

And here he came, their trusty getaway ride. Dead on time, as usual. The whine of his engines was far louder than Brawl's earlier shout, but for some reason it didn't set off that stupid organic pet, and the birds remained quiet. Brawl grumbled to himself and made one last attempt to pull his cannon free.

"Oh for goodness sake." Blast Off landed and transformed, his dark armour glinting orange in the growing light. "We're on a schedule, you do know that, don't you?" He hauled Brawl out of the ditch and pressed his head down. "Just bend over. It's like you're fresh off the assembly line. All right, straighten up. That better? Good, now get in."

Brawl gaped. How had he…? Then he grinned. Freedom! At last! He waited for Blast Off to complete his transformation sequence, then climbed into his cargo hold.

He glanced around. "Where's the detonator?"

"You can have it in precisely seventy two astroseconds," Blast Off replied. "And no earlier. Now get your aft in that seat and hold on tight."

"I'll give you 'get your aft in that seat'," Brawl muttered, but he sat down and braced himself for takeoff. It wasn't wise to antagonise Blast Off; he might refuse to tell Brawl where the detonator was, and set off the explosives himself.

Brawl didn't want that; he was looking forward to pressing that button.

* * *

.

* * *

"That's a very good question," Skyfire said, his optics fixed on the security monitor. "What _is_ he doing?"

Vortex stood on the berth, balancing on the mounting for his glue gun, his canopy glass gleaming. The tiny wheels of his landing gear caught the light as he stretched to scratch at something in the top right corner of the wall.

"I have no idea," Prowl responded.

Then Vortex turned around, facing the camera for one brief moment. Prowl's jaw dropped. "What in the name of Cybertron…"

"Uh…" Skyfire leaned closer. "Please tell me my optics are malfunctioning."

Vortex was missing a large chunk of his jaw and a good slice of his throat. Prowl froze the image and zoomed in. The edges of the wound were blunt, as though melted.

"He didn't do that to himself," Prowl said. "That's a high temperature wound - from a laser by the look of it. Seems like Red might have been right about a security bug."

Skyfire activated his comm. link. "Skyfire to Red Alert, how's it going down there?"

While Skyfire quizzed Red, Prowl accessed the night's security footage, his optics flickering as he ran through the hours of images at high speed. Nothing. When Perceptor left, Vortex was unharmed – aside from his mangled fingers and missing rotor array. The Decepticon had lay down to recharge, shifting twitchily during the night, and got up with a gaping hole in his throat. Something wasn't right.

"Optimus to the Ark, Prowl, do you read me?"

Prowl's head snapped up. Slag, yes, Optimus was due… five astroseconds ago. "Optimus, sir. Where are you?"

Skyfire moved away from the console, still talking to Red Alert; his voice was hushed, Red's was a little frantic.

"I'm on the Wilson River Highway, heading southeast to Gales Creek," Optimus responded. "Suspected Decepticon activity." There was no visual, but the audio revealed the hum of his engine and the background burr of his tires against the road.

"Backup required?" Prowl asked. He flipped the main security monitor back to real-time; Vortex had returned to scratching at the wall.

"Not as yet," Optimus said. "But be on alert."

"Yes, sir." Prowl paused; Vortex had shifted a good dozen feet along the wall, leaving behind a trail of scratches that looked almost like writing… Prowl took a long slow vent and returned his attention to Optimus. "What happened, sir?"

"Explosions, an oil refinery and several gas stations. I've alerted the Protectobots, but I thought it best to take a look myself."

Prowl nodded. Optimus could see him, even if he couldn't see Optimus. "Always best to be on the safe side. Especially after…" He trailed off; no need to mention what had happened.

"Yes."

Optimus cut the comm., but his presence remained: a moving red light on a map, brought up automatically by Teletraan One. Prowl followed it for a moment.

"That didn't sound good," Skyfire said. He ducked under a stalactite and leaned against the far end of the console. "I don't suppose the 'cons are coming after their interrogator?"

Prowl glanced up at him. "Could be. We can't discount a diversion. Teletraan One, alert all active troops, possible Combaticon threat. Prepare for imminent attack." He cycled air through the vents in his helm, focusing for a moment on the constant cool flow. "Did Red find anything?"

Skyfire shook his head. "Not yet, but he's still looking."

"All right. The cameras didn't pick anything up, but I think it's clear that they've been tampered with."

"I'll tell Red." Skyfire tapped a few buttons on his arm.

Prowl went back to watching Vortex. "He's writing something," he said.

Skyfire shrugged. "Whatever it is, it's probably obscene. Skyfire to Red Alert, Prowl says the security feed has been tampered with, can you check it out?"

Red Alert's response was quick, his expression in the little hologram stern. "Already on it." He flickered out as quickly as he had appeared.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Skyfire said.

Prowl zoomed in on the brig's live feed, panning over the scratches Vortex had made in the wall. "I know what you mean."

"Hey, is that…"

"They're glyphs," Prowl said. "Kaon style."

"Yes," Skyfire replied softly. "I know." He pointed at the screen. "Zoom a bit closer, on that one."

Prowl complied. Tight, narrow lines resolved into the dialect term for possession, aligned with a personal pronoun. "What is it?"

"Go left a bit. That phrase, it's familiar." Skyfire re-opened his comm. "Wheeljack, I need you to take a look at something, tell me what you see." He sent a screen capture of the words to Wheeljack's console. The response was immediate.

"What the frag? He's writin' _poetry?_"

Prowl gaped. "He's what?"

"Not composing," Skyfire said. "He's transcribing. From memory. With a few errors. But yes, it's poetry of a sort. Song lyrics, in actual fact."

"You what?" Wheeljack chimed in. "The 'copter wrote that? This I gotta see."

"Don't-" Prowl began, but Wheeljack had already signed off.


	11. Declaration

**Content advice: **suggestive language

* * *

.

* * *

"I'm coming too!" Perceptor cried. He couldn't let Wheeljack visit Vortex alone; there was no telling what the Decepticon would talk him into.

Wheeljack spun in the doorway, pivoting on the jamb. "Percy! Hey, look at that, you're up! You, uh, you sure you wanna go back in there?"

Perceptor sighed. Hiding in his alt mode hadn't been the best idea he'd ever had. "Yes," he said. "I'm sure." He dropped off the workbench and gestured for Wheeljack to lead the way.

When they got to the brig, Vortex had his back to them; he was still writing. He didn't acknowledge them, although he must have noticed they were there. Especially when Wheeljack leant against the wall with a clank and started to laugh.

Perceptor sighed again and went over to the console. He might as well get some work done while he was here. It wasn't as though the extraction of a personality component was an everyday procedure. He needed to prepare.

"Who's that for?" Wheeljack said. Perceptor glanced up, then realised that Wheeljack was talking to the prisoner.

Vortex didn't bother to turn around. He simply flipped them an obscene gesture and carried on.

Perceptor watched them in the reflection of one of the blank screens. Wheeljack's arms were crossed, his posture guarded, but amused. That was good. Well, it wasn't bad. Meeting psychosis with belligerence, what could possibly go wrong? Perceptor shook his head, actually he'd rather not follow that line of thought.

"I remember that song." Wheeljack's vocal indicators flashed blue in the dim grey of Perceptor's screen. "Always thought it was a bit dumb, all them promises just to get someone to put out. That for Blades?"

Perceptor cringed. What on Earth did Wheeljack think he was doing? Interrogating the interrogator?

He studied Wheeljack's reflection. If there was any hint that this was going in an even worse direction, he'd have to get them both out of there. He didn't want to be responsible for another scene, he felt bad enough about the last one.

"What's the matter," Wheeljack said. "Cyberkitty got your tongue?"

Perceptor tensed as Vortex glanced over his shoulder, the crimson glare of his visor aimed at Wheeljack for just a little too long. The Decepticon turned, slowly, and Wheeljack's vocal indicators lit up.

"Well frag me sideways…"

Perceptor stared at the monitor, then spun his chair around, just to check that what he was seeing was correct.

"What in the pit did you do that for?" Wheeljack said.

"He didn't." Bumblebee stepped through the open door. "Prowl did it. Probably got fed up with his smart mouth, eh copter?"

"_No!_" Wheeljack sounded impressed. "You serious?"

"Sure." Bee shrugged.

Vortex gave Bee the creepiest grin Perceptor had ever seen, and dropped to his knees. He began sliding his finger over the berth. Words, Perceptor realised. He was pressing words into the soft surface.

'HELLO, HORNY.'

"Frag you," Bee replied cheerfully. "Hey, Wheeljack, is it true. You guys putting him back in stasis?"

"Bumblebee!" Perceptor snapped.

"I was just asking," Bee muttered. But at least he seemed to get the hint. Vortex was still staring at him. Perceptor tried not to be relieved that _he_ wasn't the focus of Vortex's attention.

"Smart," Wheeljack said.

'OH, YOU HAVE NO IDEA,' Vortex wrote. 'HORNY'S QUITE THE DETECTIVE. THOSE THINGS ON YOUR FACE, DO THEY LIGHT UP WHEN YOU OVERLOAD?'

Wheeljack stared and Bee snickered. Perceptor wanted to thump them both. What did they think this was, a circus?

'I'D PAY TO SEE THAT.'

"Bumblebee," Perceptor said. He adopted a level tone, closing off his mind to the unsubtle rev of the copter's engine. "I believe you are required elsewhere."

"Sure am," Bee said. "On my way now. Just thought I'd check in, seeing as I was passing. Can't leave him unguarded, what with-"

"Yes, yes, thank you, Bumblebee!" Perceptor blurted.

In his cell, Vortex grinned.

* * *

.

* * *

It was never a good idea to leave Swindle on his own.

Onslaught had learnt this the hard way, a very long time before. It was, he mused as they entered the cave system five clicks from the Ark, a very useful lesson to have learnt.

Swindle was difficult. Time in the box hadn't changed him. He was still the same selfish, thieving opportunist he'd been back on Cybertron. Only difference was: back then, they hadn't been team.

They'd known each other, done the occasional deal and paired up on the odd heist – Onslaught had even rented Swindle office space, storage, protection when he'd needed it – but they'd been two individuals, two legitimate and respectable businessmechs, meeting over common ground.

Now that Onslaught was responsible for him, everything had changed.

"Keep close," Onslaught snapped.

"I'm _here!_" Swindle wailed. "For frag sake."

"And keep your voice down."

Swindle huffed, but otherwise kept his discontent to himself.

Radio silence was a right royal pain in the aft, but word had it that Blaster had helped upgrade the Ark's defences. If they transmitted as much as a triangulation ping, regardless of encryption, Teletraan One would know about it.

Onslaught couldn't have that.

And so, here he was, leading Swindle through a series of ever-decreasing underground spaces. It was amazing; Swindle's smaller build made him ideal for negotiating the uneven arrangement of geological excretions, and yet somehow he managed to knock himself on everything. Whereas Onslaught – larger, bulkier, and walking with his back bowed simply to avoid scraping his helm on the ceiling – was only scuffed where the passage had been too small to get through otherwise.

"Frag!" Swindle swore, and winced as his echo swore back. "Sorry!"

Onslaught bit back the "Sorry, _what_?" that formed in his vocaliser. He wasn't about to get a 'Sir' from Swindle. Slag, he hardly ever got it from Vortex (maybe, very occasionally, when they were interfacing) and the copter was a military build, he had respect protocols hardwired into his personality component. Not that you could tell.

Swindle wasn't a military build, and thus didn't have those protocols. Sure, he looked like one, but the army jeep chosen for him by Starscream bore as much resemblance to his pre-Detention Centre Cybertronian alt mode as Thrust did to Powerglide. Similar colours, vaguely similar capabilities, but, when you got down to it, as different as steel and lead.

So, no automatic lip service to his position as commander – let alone any respect. No understanding of the military terminology that Onslaught had picked up as easily as he'd learnt the names and security arrangements of every bar owner in Kaon. No understanding of the subtle genius that underlay his strategies. No understanding of his strategies at all, most of the time. And not because he was unintelligent – Swindle was hardly stupid – but because his vast store of fast-thinking creative potential was always channelled elsewhere.

Usually somewhere inappropriate.

An alarm flashed in Onslaught's HUD, and he paused to check their position. Without bouncing a signal off a satellite – or, more helpfully, off Blast Off – all he had to rely on was the faint energy signatures of the Ark and its crew, and his own log of their journey so far.

"Why've we stopped?" Swindle demanded.

Onslaught raised a hand for silence, then crouched on the gritty floor and double-checked their presumed coordinates. At least Swindle wasn't standing around gawping – as Brawl, who emphatically _was_ a military mech, would have done. No, he was glancing around in that suspicious way of his, his gyro-gun held loosely, ready to aim and fire if necessary.

Impressive. For Swindle. Vortex wouldn't even have bothered asking. He would have melted back into the gloom, out of reach of Onslaught's headlamps, and waited for the signal to move on. But Swindle wasn't Vortex. He didn't have the training, didn't have the mind – thank Sigma – and he didn't have the combat awareness.

When Onslaught spoke, his voice was so quiet it didn't even echo. "Time's up. Diversion's live, we're good to go."

"Huh?" Swindle gave him a look. "I thought we weren't having comms?"

"We're not," Onslaught said. He stood and pushed his way past a large stalagmite. The rock's friable surface pared away at his touch.

"Then how do you _know_?" Swindle pressed. It was obvious what he meant. How did Onslaught know that Brawl hadn't fragged up and botched setting the explosives. How did he know that Blast Off had made the rendezvous and that Brawl was safely on board the shuttle? How did he know that Brawl had remembered to press the button and activate their diversion?

"Because," Onslaught said. "I trust them. Right, this is the place." He glanced up at the ceiling, his terrain-analysis software mapping the thickness of the rock, while his optics registered the gentle undulations and odd differences in colour, strata laid down long before any of them had been built. Strange how this planet was so young and yet so old.

Strange too, that Swindle hadn't commented on the mention of trust.

"We're going up, then," Swindle said.

Onslaught nodded.

There was a series of soft clicks as Swindle readied his scatter blaster. They could only risk firing the smaller guns down here, but on the surface, and in the Ark, it was a different matter altogether.

Swindle vented long and slow, then flashed Onslaught the briefest of grins. "Suppose Blast Off's there in case Brawl forgets how to press a button."

Onslaught nodded again; no point in coming to Brawl's defence. His survey concluded, he got into position. Knees on the floor, hands too, braced. Gun turrets pointed up, aimed at the slightest of fissures, almost invisible to any ordinary optical scan.

He had time to hope that Blast Off's intel was correct, that even though Wheeljack had extended the security perimeter above ground, the network of caves below the Ark – and indeed below the national park in which it was nested – remained largely undefended. Time to hope that the rock ceiling was as thin as it appeared to be. That his helm would deflect the worst of the rubble. That they would be able to locate Vortex, break him out of the brig, and arrive at the rendezvous at exactly the time Blast Off descended from orbit.

It was a lot to hope. Would have been more to hope had he not planned each stage. But the strategy was simple, all he needed was for his team to do their jobs.

He bowed his head and fired.


	12. Countdown

Well, that was informative. Not to mention entertaining. Vortex completed the last of the glyphs and contemplated his next move.

Perceptor was so easy. The slightest rev of Vortex's engine, the softest sigh of air through his vents, and the scientist became flustered. His hands shook, and his mouth twitched. He snapped at the minibot, he was short with Wheeljack; his fingers skittered across the control panel, urgent, hasty. He made frequent mistakes, and cursed softly to himself.

Wheeljack, on the other hand, he was another matter entirely. Cool and collected, he leant against the wall as Bumblebee had done, but – unlike the minibot – his nonchalance wasn't feigned. Neither, it appeared, was his interest.

'YOU MISS THE GOOD OLD DAYS,' Vortex wrote. No question mark, simply a statement.

Wheeljack tilted his head to the side, neither confirmation nor denial.

'I'LL TAKE THAT AS A YES.'

The smallest of nods, almost certainly subconscious. Vortex glanced at Perceptor, but kept his visor fixed on Wheeljack. One of the benefits of an extra layer of glass – no one could tell for sure who you were looking at.

"You gonna tell me who that's for, then?" Wheeljack said. Vortex flashed his denta in a quick smile. The scientist was forthright, had to give him that. And a lack of guile was always so very attractive in an Autobot.

'WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW?' Vortex wrote. He eased himself out of the crouch, focusing on the transfer of hydraulic pressure as he lay down on his front. His missing rotors tingled, a ghost sensation.

"It's why I asked," Wheeljack said. Perceptor gave him a look; could have been caution, could have been censure. Wheeljack either missed it or elected to ignore it. "So spill, who's it for?"

Vortex grinned and shook his head.

"Okaaaaay," Wheeljack said. "I'm gonna assume it's an Autobot, 'cause otherwise you wouldn't have writ it there. Am I right?"

Vortex mimicked Wheeljack's earlier casual nod, down to the minute twitch of his right foot. Wheeljack tilted his head, not intimidated, but no longer quite as comfortable as he had been.

"Don't talk to him," Perceptor snapped. "You'll only encourage him." The console's lights danced under his hands, a frantic pattern which Vortex was only beginning to realise might be pertinent.

"I don't see why it matters," Wheeljack replied. "He ain't getting out of here, and anyway, I got a need to know."

Ain't getting out of here? Frag no, Vortex _was_ getting out of here. And if he could take down Wheeljack and Perceptor in the process, it would be so much better.

Not that he had the first idea how to get out of the cell. Still, they had to open it sometime. And until such time, he could work on getting something worthwhile out of the situation.

Wheeljack vented slowly, gearing up for another round of Guess the Autobot, but Perceptor beckoned him over. He tapped the console, looking perplexed.

"Could you just have a look at this for me?"

It was impressive how quickly – and how thoroughly – Wheeljack became absorbed in this new activity. Vortex gave Perceptor a friendly little wave and wrote 'NICE RUSE' on the berth. Perceptor pretended not to notice.

So, team science had its weak points. Which was good, because the cell didn't seem to.

Perceptor's prudishness, Wheeljack's butterfly mind, and Skyfire's Starscream issues. Utterly fascinating, all of them, the kind of intel he needed to crack them under interrogation. But not exactly the kind of intel he needed to concoct an escape plan.

If only he could talk to Onslaught. He needed a strategist's overview; psychological manipulation – although highly entertaining and helpfully distracting – could only take him so far.

Still, the cell wouldn't be locked forever. They had to get him out to… to do that thing Perceptor had let slip they were planning.

He shied away from the thought of the box. They weren't putting him back in sensory deprivation. It just wasn't going to happen. He watched Perceptor's hands skitter over the console, watched Wheeljack tilt his head, scrolling through lists of numbers that Vortex couldn't quite make out.

He tried the gestalt bond again. It was locked, as ever, nothing but the faintest life signature from any of them. He didn't even know if they were awake or in recharge.

Were they coming for him? His throat itched, his self-repair trying – and failing – to do something with the cauterised cables. He arched his neck, increasing the pressure.

They had to, didn't they?

He slouched over the berth, resisting the urge to draw his knees up to his chest. This wasn't a problem. He didn't need Onslaught. He was larger than the Autobots, stronger than them; as long as Skyfire didn't come back. All he needed was Perceptor to open the cell door, and he'd have a hostage. After that, it was one short step to freedom.

_Didn't they?_

He stamped on the thought. Don't rely on your team; Swindle had taught him that.

"I think I got it," Wheeljack said. Perceptor glanced at the scrolling numbers and nodded.

"Yes, I believe that will do it."

Do what? Vortex thought, and it occurred to him that he had no idea what timeframe the Autobots were working to.

"No worries," Wheeljack replied. "You want me to pull the plug?"

Perceptor winced, and there followed a long moment of meaningful glances and half-hidden gestures. Private comms, although they were obviously trying to hide it.

After a while, Wheeljack looked down. Perceptor touched him on the arm; was something going on between the two of them? Interesting.

But not quite as interesting as mention of pulling the plug. Vortex ran a quick systems diagnostic. Fuel at 12.2%, power core at 76.98%; weapons offline, no ammo. His tail rotors quivered; at least he still had those.

And his sensor net. Fully online and working perfectly. He lay still and reduced power to everything except his CPU.

Perceptor pressed a quick sequence of buttons; beside him, Wheeljack looked mildly ashamed. A background hum that had been there all along suddenly died. The forced recharge jack had been isolated.

Not that Vortex couldn't recharge without it, but the process would be slower. Far too slow without energon, and he doubted they'd be bringing him any more of that.

He almost missed the new vibration which passed through the Ark's walls. It was an impact tremor, he was sure of it. Onslaught? Brawl? He smothered the hope before it could kindle. He couldn't allow himself to rely on them; they hadn't come for him yet, they wouldn't come for him ever. Onslaught thought he was a liability, Brawl didn't think at all, Swindle was an aft and Blast Off would probably find some perverse amusement in Vortex being put back in the box. Frag, the shuttle could bear a grudge.

A low alarm began to sound, and the science bots gave each other what looked to be a concerned glance. Then Perceptor flicked a switch, and a series of numbers began to flash across a screen. Even at this distance, Vortex could see it was a countdown. Not good.

"Let's go," Perceptor said. Wheeljack nodded and followed him out.


	13. Waiting

Onslaught broke ground. Heaving himself through the litter of fractured rocks, he performed a scan of their surroundings before his visual sensors had a chance to take anything in.

"Clear." He rolled away from the hole, landing in a crouch, his rifle ready. Swindle followed, flying rather than climbing from the cave. He assumed a defensive position, alert and silent, looking for once like the soldier he was meant to be. Onslaught nodded to him, and they were off.

The Ark glimmered in the morning sun, a vulgar orange lump protruding from the mountain. Onslaught kept to the hillside, tracking Swindle as he stuck close behind. Blast Off's intel indicated that the brig was towards the aft, built into the secondary fuel tanks. Made sense, Onslaught thought, given that they wouldn't need the ship for interplanetary travel any more.

He had the urge to shoot it. Not just shoot it, but utterly demolish it, pull its plates apart with his bare hands, deconstruct it from the outside in. There was no time to examine the impulse, to uncover whether it came from the gestalt programming – a shadow of half-remembered pain, Bruticus's incoherent grief at the loss of Vortex – or whether it came from his own deep loathing of the Autobots. Whichever, he fought to keep it in check; he couldn't afford to lose himself in this battle.

The first shot seared past his arm at exactly the moment his audials began to register the alarm.

"Slag!" Swindle threw himself behind a boulder. "I do not need this!"

Onslaught was inclined to agree. They were still over a klick from the ship, too far to make a break for it and still have time to bust Vortex out.

He pressed close to the rock, scanning for energy signatures. Four Autobots ahead, and one circling behind. No idea who they were. Not Ironhide though, thank Sigma, and – he had to hope – not Prime.

"There's better cover ahead." He spoke low, not a whisper, but for Swindle's audio sensors only. There was no point in switching to comms, the Autobots would already be trying to crack their encryption. Swindle made a noise, halfway between assent and a nervous choke.

"Now!" Onslaught roared, transforming as he leapt, missing the sting of a laser by a few brief feet. He landed, the shock juddering through him, his tires already spinning, kicking up rock and sand and dust as his cannon turrets swivelled, disgorging a rapid barrage of fire. And Swindle was behind him, also transforming, also accelerating over the brittle, crumbling earth. His cannon fired, a blaze of purple light. Not a direct hit – no screams, no cries – but close enough.

There was a long moment of confusion, a hot rush of excitement, the burn of energon. Dust billowed around and behind them, and the Autobots continued to shoot.

* * *

.

* * *

"What's going on?" Perceptor's voice was quiet over comms, and Prowl struggled to make it out past the roar of incendiaries, and the over-loud, echoing rumble of Onslaught's engine.

"Decepticons," Prowl replied. "Onslaught and Swindle. The others can't be far away." He didn't pause to speak, but kept firing. To his left, Skyfire hunched, taking careful aim with his photon missiles. To his right, Sideswipe fired with gleeful abandon, that curving half-grin on his face, his brother echoing his pose a short distance away. Only Bumblebee was out of range, attempting to close in on the 'cons from behind.

"Oh," Perceptor said. "Oh dear. Should we continue with… um?"

Wheeljack cut in, his voice emerging far louder from the speaker than it should. "What Percy's tryin' to say," he said, "is do you want us to box to 'con?"

"Yes," Prowl said. He didn't need to think about it; there was no other option. They couldn't wait for Optimus. This was their chance to isolate Vortex, to take out his personality component, to remove him from the war.

To bring down the Combaticons. The thought was a satisfying one. Reduce the Decepticon gestalts by one, reduce the threat to the Autobots, to his companions, his friends.

And if they could capture more of them in the process, it was all for the better.

"Do it now," he said.

"Sure thing," Wheeljack replied, and the comm. pinged out.

* * *

.

* * *

The red lights taunted him. Vortex lay on the bunk, conserving his energy. The flicker of declining numbers filled his optical feed, flooding his HUD. It was a countdown to something, although it wasn't clear what. To the door opening, and Perceptor removing him from the cell? To Skyfire pinning him while they dismantled his helm and removed his personality component? To an eternity of waiting, wanting, unfulfilled and isolated.

_Not the box, not the box, not the box._ Slag! Not that again. He couldn't be dealing with that. Not now, not ever. He suppressed a shiver; even that small movement was too much right now. He had to think, to keep on thinking, but not to move. He had to conserve energy. Had to plan for the moment they deactivated the energon bars.

He had to ignore the insistent dull thuds from outside, the faint zip and zing of battle. Could be his team, come to get him. No, he stamped on the thought. He couldn't rely on that. A Decepticon who couldn't get himself back to HQ didn't deserve to get back to HQ at all. He wasn't sure if he believed that, but it was a much-repeated maxim, and he really couldn't trust that his team would think differently. The sounds could be Autobots training, could be Omega Supreme getting a tune up. Could be a lot of things.

When Wheeljack and Perceptor came back, he was utterly still, straining to hear more of what was happening outside.

"You don't look so smug now," Wheeljack said. Vortex ignored him, it wasn't worth the effort it would take to scrawl a response on the surface of the berth.

"Wheeljack!" Perceptor snapped. His hands shook as he typed a code into a keypad on the console. "Could you, uh, calibrate the intake protocols on the reception module please."

Now that didn't seem like a ruse, not like earlier. A reception module? That sounded far too much like an object you might put a personality component into once you'd extracted it.

Vortex cut all feed to his quivering tail rotors, and shifted slightly to tuck them under his chest plates. Couldn't give the Autobots any indication of his discomfort. He had to think of something…

But he was fresh out of ideas. Wait until the energon bars were deactivated and pounce. It was the best he could come up with. Slag, it was _all_ he could come up with.

On the console beside Perceptor's left hand, the little red numbers continued to cycle down.


	14. Extraction

Blast Off descended. Brawl whooped from the co-pilot's seat, where he'd been allowed to settle provided he promised not to touch anything. So far, he was behaving; he kept his hands to himself, cradling the spent detonator to his chest plates, and yelling his enjoyment at the top of his voice as the incandescent glow of atmospheric re-entry faded from Blast Off's ceramic shields.

Clouds whipped across the shuttle's cockpit, moisture steaming from his fuselage.

"Two hundred astroseconds to rendezvous and counting," Blast Off said. Brawl whooped again, his pleasure clear.

"Gonna kick Skyfire in his wide, white aft!"

Blast Off had no idea what Brawl's obsession was with Skyfire. There was just something about the large flier that the tank seemed to despise. Could just be his bulk. Brawl had a thing for large targets.

Not that Blast Off couldn't see the attraction in shooting something big, but Skyfire was a little small for his tastes. Cities were more his thing, sometimes islands too, occasionally continents. Antarctica had always looked particularly tempting, although he'd only ever targeted it for practice.

"Fifty astroseconds left," Blast Off said. All that military jargon could get scrapped, he'd talk how he damned well pleased. "Are you fully prepared?"

Brawl nodded, bouncing in the seat. "Sure am!"

"Stop that!" Blast Off snapped, but then the cloud cover broke and his visual sensors were finally able to lock onto the Ark. Where there was a battle in full progress. That wasn't good. He didn't slow – he'd make the waypoint or rendezvous, or whatever the scrap he was meant to call it, at exactly the time Onslaught had indicated, regardless of the depth of slag Onslaught and Swindle had sunk themselves into.

But that didn't mean he couldn't fire a few welcoming shots. And, in the process, heroically save the day.

Brawl squirmed, trying to get a better look as Blast Off powered up his cannons.

"Gonna shoot stuff!" Brawl yelled. "FRAG YES!"

* * *

.

* * *

The impact knocked Onslaught off his feet, but not for long. He sensed the hum of Blast Off's laser cannons several astroseconds before the ground turned white and the air began to burn. When it came, he was ready for it, rolling in the dust, discharging his own cannons wildly in the Autobots' direction.

Swindle went sprawling, and Onslaught seized him by the arm, running now, speeding towards the Ark through a pall of grating, gritty dirt. He didn't spare a glance for the Autobots, he didn't have time. They'd be alive, back there, he was sure of it. Alive but hopefully injured, and almost certainly disorientated.

That moment of disorientation was his chance.

"Here!" he yelled, pointing Swindle at the hull and transforming again, taking aim. Swindle followed suit, a little shaken, a little dazed, but sticking to the plan. He knelt as Onslaught pulsed beam after beam into the side of the Ark, aiming his own cannon and letting rip a searing stream of energy.

Above them, Blast Off transformed, disgorging Brawl as he did so, the tank falling into place behind them, laughing gleefully as he started up with the covering fire. Blast Off joined him on the ground, firing before his feet made contact with the dirt.

The hull was thick, a double shell designed for passing easily through a planet's atmosphere, for enduring immense changes in pressure, in heat, in the chemical composition of the air. Even Onslaught's stun gun, which was capable of tearing a hole through a volcano, wasn't making quick progress.

"You appear to have under-estimated-" Blast Off began, but the renewed pop and zing of laser fire prevented him from continuing.

Onslaught didn't respond. The Autobots were too near, their little yellow scout closing in on his flank. More were likely to arrive any astrosecond, and Brawl's distraction would keep Prime busy for only so long.

"Combaticons," he boomed, quelling the rush of apprehension rising in his own circuits; there was no option, they had to do this. "Transform and combine!"

* * *

.

* * *

The Ark shuddered, the energon bars flickering. All right, regardless what was causing that, it was time for action. Vortex launched himself from the berth, hitting the bars with as much force as he could manage. But they didn't break; they flung him back, his helm clanging against the far wall, his tail rotors caught under him, bending.

"All right," Perceptor said. He had his back to the cell still, as did Wheeljack, the both of them bent over the console. "Ready."

_I sure am_, Vortex thought, but he wasn't.

Wheeljack turned, an odd device in his hands. Like a pistol glued to an alternator, and with a weird pointy bit at the front. Wheeljack fired, and Vortex tensed. Then he fell, a scream welling in his circuits, but with his vocaliser missing it had absolutely no place to go.

He couldn't move. This was bad. His sensor net was still online, the input dulled, but his hydraulics refused to respond. The signals emerging from his CPU were diverted or fizzled out, never reaching their destinations.

"Well, the immobilizer works," Wheeljack said brightly. "Fancy that."

"Yes," Perceptor replied, his tone subdued. "So it seems. Just be careful."

Vortex twitched. The energon bars dimmed and faded away. It was his chance, the moment he'd been waiting for, and he couldn't take it. He didn't even have control over the movements of his faceplates; he could feel them, slack and still, the hole in his throat gaping, but he couldn't get anything to move.

Wheeljack lifted him. Not easily, but competently, hefting him up onto the berth. What, they weren't even taking him out of the cell? He tried to struggle, to fight, to move, _anything_, but Wheeljack's piece of scrap invention denied him the ability even to refocus his optics.

In desperation, he turned to the gestalt bond. It was closed. It was always closed. His team mates were alive, their energy signatures clear, but that was the extent of what it told him.

The Ark shook again, and this time he allowed himself the fierce, foolish hope that his team had come to get him. Even though he knew it was only the Autobot fliers landing on the roof, or a few of the grounders playing a prank.

He even imagined that he heard Onslaught, faint and tinny through the high little window, give the command to transform and combine.

Laughter echoed through his processor, grinding out the background hiss of oblivion, the motionless, insensate spectre of the Detention Centre. Oh slag, he'd really done it this time. Back in the box and he wasn't coming out. Not now, not ever, an eternity alone with his thoughts, never offline, never not aware. Wheeljack's hands flickered before his face, his vocal indicators flashing blue as he said something Vortex could no longer make out.

Everything blurred together: the vibrations as Wheeljack unclipped his helm, the back panel coming clean away; the sharp graze of air over his exposed databanks; the glimmer of red as Perceptor came over, a box in his hands, empty and open and waiting.

Vortex railed at them, screamed at them, but nothing happened. No sound, no protestation, not even the smallest quiver of his bent tail rotors.

The glimmer of hope faded, and Vortex began to truly panic. He couldn't go back, he wouldn't, they couldn't do this to him. They were Autobots, they were meant to be about justice and honour and doing the right thing. This wasn't the right thing. It was the wrong thing, the worst thing. An eternity of torture.

His sensor net died, all feeling gone, instantly and irrevocably. He clung on to the last tendrils of input: the haze of red and white in his optical feed; the slight tremble of the berth under him, rocked by some unknown force; the pressure of Wheeljack's hands, of small tools reaching inside him, grasping, cutting.

But it was all memory now, the last glimmer of connection with life, and he'd lost it.

His team hadn't come for him. Vortex whimpered in the numb nothingness, lost and alone.

The gestalt bond opened.


	15. Components

Bruticus tore at the side of the Ark, leaning against the ship so that the loss of his arm wouldn't unbalance him. The metal was pliant, strong, but supple enough that it didn't break easily, and he had to grasp and heave and wrench just to pull one plate from another. He popped rivets and unstuck welding, clawing single-handed at the double hull, then the interior walls.

His missing part was in there, he could feel it. He reached out through the bond, grasping after the shape of that mind, that whirling sharp mesh of memory and stark, overwhelming panic. It was conscious, this time, but its comms were down and all it could do was scrabble after him as he clutched at it, striving desperately for a place to meet in the middle.

The Autobots fired, but it didn't matter. Starscream had removed his deactivation switch after Megatron had done that odd thing with his processor, that strange mental reorganization that had allowed him to see more clearly who was friend and who was foe. For a while at least, he could bear it.

But as the Autobots continued to fire, Bruticus realised that they weren't just fighting him because he was their enemy. They were fighting him because this was all their fault.

_They_ had taken his missing arm. They had caused all the hurt and the panic, all the confusion.

He tore a chunk from their spaceship and threw it at them, howling his – his missing component's – pain and fear and distress. He left off the dismantling for a moment, long enough to pick up the sonic stun rifle and fire blast after blast at them until the ground they stood on threatened to cave, and they were forced to flee for cover. Then back to the Ark, a little yellow 'bot clawing at his shin, scaling him, trying to get under his plating. Bruticus swatted him, but he clung on, clambering higher, firing at a weak spot just below his knee.

Bruticus stomped, attempting the shake off the yellow 'bot. But the missing part of him was close, so very close, and the yellow 'bot didn't matter. His knee didn't matter. He could fragment, go back to smaller units; it would only be one damaged component. He had others.

Not yet.

He held together, peering through the hole in the hull. In here, he knew, was his missing part. The part that had been taken from him. Behind the thrusters, in a room that smelt of ozone and old energon.

And yes! There it was! Lying facedown on a berth, the back of its helm wide open. A pair of Autobots scrambled for their weapons, and a small metal box – significant, somehow – clattered to the floor. Purple light spilled from a tiny gap in the lid.

"Mine!" Bruticus snarled. The gunfire didn't matter, the lasers were nothing. Scorched plating he could live with, pain he could endure. But not the loss of one fifth of his self.

Ignoring the Autobots, he prodded his missing limb.

It didn't move.

It was damaged, far from whole. Maybe the rest was in the box? It looked small, though, too small to hold the twiddly bits. But it felt important, and Bruticus picked it up, clutching it between forefinger and thumb as he gripped the limp grey body of the copter tightly with his other fingers.

A blast hit the back of his neck, and he reeled. He fell away from the Ark, more blasts landing on him, harder and hotter than the earlier laser fire. He looked down, into a tiny muzzle aimed directly at his head. This new enemy grinned, his yellow and black facial fins gleaming in the morning sun. He squeezed the trigger.

Bruticus disintegrated.

* * *

.

* * *

"Slag!" Bumblebee landed on his aft in the dirt. He let the momentum carry him, rolling him over into a natural crouch as he raised his gun and fired at the complex maelstrom of moving parts. Climbing Bruticus' leg hadn't been the best choice he'd ever made, but he hadn't thought the combiner would fall apart so quickly either, or look so confusing while he did it.

The others caught him up, crouching, shooting. Prowl gave him a quick glance, and Bee nodded; no harm done, don't need a medic. He shoved himself from the ground, running to keep pace with the advancing front line.

The Combaticons were retreating. They'd got what they came for; Vortex's limp body slung over Onslaught's shoulder, a box leaking purple light held tight to his chest. Blast Off transformed, the roar of his engines making everything vibrate.

Bee flinched as a piece of shrapnel pinged one of his horns. Brawl and Swindle kept firing, covering Onslaught as he loaded the copter aboard, and then they too were inside and Blast Off shot into the sky, a blur of brown and purple quickly vanishing through the thin haze of cloud.

"Cease fire," Prowl sighed. "They're out of range."

Bee slumped, for the first time noticing the damage done to the Ark. "Oh look," he said, grasping after a levity he didn't feel. "Cleanup duty."

"That'll be for all of us," Prowl said. "All right, I want patrols inside and out. Make sure there's no-one else lurking and that they didn't leave anything behind. Bumblebee, you go check on Wheeljack and Perceptor. I'll contact Grapple and Hoist, and we can make a start on repairs."

Bee nodded, taking one last look at the gaping hole in the side of the Ark. He was there just long enough to hear Prowl's parting words to Skyfire.

"I don't know what I'm going to tell the Protectobots."

* * *

.

* * *

Vortex came around in med bay. It wasn't the Nemesis, he could tell by the strip lights humming high above, but Combaticon HQ. He'd been in stasis, his consciousness suspended. He watched as the figures rolled across his HUD. Fourteen joors. Not long, and a good while less than he'd been separated from his body. His team must have activated the emergency protocols, or got a medic to, forcing everything to shut down. He stamped on the memory of his own blind panic, and spent a moment enjoying the pulse of electricity surging through his wires, the tingle of his sensor net as he flexed his fingers and made his damaged tail rotors spin.

He still didn't know if the enemy had actively decided to box him while he was still conscious, or if they truly had no idea what they were doing. And he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

It didn't matter right now. What mattered was his team had come for him. He grinned, wondering whether Blast Off had finally have gotten over the Unfortunate Squishy Incident. He'd have to find out, when he could get the shuttle alone.

He stretched out on the repair berth. That probably wouldn't be yet. He still lacked rotors and a vocaliser. But at least he was in med bay, and not the Nemesis' brig.

As for his team, there was no sign of his them, just the white blur of a medic drone as it scurried around, watching him with insectile eyes. But there was a patch welded to his jaw, and he'd been recharged and refuelled. He wasn't strapped down either. He fidgeted, contemplating standing up; he'd had enough of incarceration.

The main door opened with a whoosh, revealing Onslaught, his armour pitted and stained, his visor bright.

"You can stay where you are," he said. "Starscream's sending Hook over. You're fortunate that you're useful."

_I'm always useful_, Vortex tried to say. The severed connections at his throat itched. He tried again, using his comms. "You'll always need me, and you know it."

"Not if you get yourself killed." Onslaught said. "And the next time Soundwave asks you were you are, you're to give him proper coordinates. None of this 'I'm on a continent with squishies' slag. Understand?"

Vortex sighed, glaring up at the far strip lights. "I was tied to an Autobot," he said. "You know how important it is that they underestimate me."

"There are better ways to go about it than that!" Onslaught paused, and Vortex waited while his commander's anger ebbed away. "No more chasing after Protectobots," he said.

"What? Oh come on! What about minibots?"

"You know what I mean," Onslaught glowered. "I hope you've learnt something from all this."

_That my team actually will pull me out of the slag_? Vortex thought. Or, perhaps, that pushing Onslaught any further at this particular point wouldn't be a productive use of his time. Or maybe it was to do with Autobots, with their twisted morality and warped sense of justice.

"Sure," he said. "I learnt plenty."

He thought of the Autobots, and the store of data he'd accumulated. Data he could use to get back at them, to get his hands on that tempting little Protectobot medic. His commander would come around on that one, he'd have to.

Onslaught gave him a long, hard look. "You'd better have," he said.


End file.
